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Overload Journal #96 - April 2010

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Title: A Practical, Reasoned and Inciteful Lemma for Overworked and Overlooked Loners

Author: webeditor

Date: 19 April 2010 08:55:00 +01:00 or Mon, 19 April 2010 08:55:00 +01:00

Summary: Popular movements need a rallying cry. Teedy Deigh offers a timely one.

Body:

It seems you can no longer promote an idea without framing it as a manifesto of some kind or other. The Manifesto for Agile Software Development [Agile] is ultimately to blame for this state of affairs. Many have followed in its wake and its form, some more notable than others, some more notorious. The Declaration of Interdependence [DecInd], the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship [Craftmanship], the SOA Manifesto [SOA], the FAIL Manifesto [FAIL] and undoubtedly countless others have all aped the basic style of the Agile Manifesto and, similarly, without saying much that could be considered provocative.

Provocation, contradiction and taking a stand used to be what manifestos and declarations were all about. It is perhaps time for another proclamation, one that is likely to reach the core values of developers everywhere, one that is a counterpoint to more thoughtful and considered approaches. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools? This is about individuals without interactions! This is a battle cry from the trenches thrown together over coffee, refined during meetings as an alternative to buzzword bingo and published as an afterthought during a long build.

References

[Agile] Manifesto for Agile Software Development,http://agilemanifesto.org

[Craftmanship] Manifesto for Software Craftmanship, http://manifesto.softwarecraftmanship.org

[DecInd] Declaration of Independence, http://pmdoi.org

[FAIL] FAIL Manifesto, http://failmanifesto.org

[SOA] SOA Manifesto, http://soa-manifesto.org

We have been putting in overtime and the code face and,
through non-reflective practice and missed deadlines,
have come to value:

Coding over writing any documentation whatsoever

Debugging over unit testing

Singletons over carefully reasoned, loosely coupled design

Voice over IP

That is, while the items on the right look like hard work and
sound quite boring, the items on the left offer identifiable
short-term gains and the promise of surprise, mystery and
continued employment in the longer term.

Notes:

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