InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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Interview: Luke Francl Explains Why Testing Is Overrated
In this interview filmed during RubyFringe 2008, Luke Francl explains his position towards testing. While supporting unit testing, he thinks testing is not going to reveal all application defects. Development teams should practice code reviews and usability tests which are likely to discover bugs not visible though other methods.
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Article: InfoQ Editors' Recommended Reading List
Members of the InfoQ editorial team discuss a number of books which have influenced how we think about software development, architecture and managing projects.
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Backlog Lacks the Backbone
Backlogs have been under criticism for some time now. Mary Poppendieck goes to the extent of suggesting that product backlog should be eliminated if it is not satisfying the desired purpose. On similar lines Jeff Patton suggested using story maps instead of flat backlogs which help focus on the system being developed.
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Spolsky vs Uncle Bob
The last few weeks, a public dispute has been going on between Joel Spolsky and Robert C Martin (Uncle Bob) about Test-Driven Development and about the SOLID principles of OO design. Here is a summary and review of the match.
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Use Cases Considered Valuable (but Optional) For Lean/Agile Requirements Capture
Dean Leffingwell, author of Scaling Software Agility and Chief Product Methodologist at Rally, has concluded that Use Cases can be a valuable tool to model requirements for a large-scale Lean/Agile Project. Use cases are not commonly encountered in Lean/Agile (especially XP and Scrum), where stories are the requirements gathering tool of choice.
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Scrum Club: Agile Philanthropy With an Edge
The first rule of Scrum Club is... At work they are product managers, CTOs, entrepreneurs, designers, and coders. At Scrum Club they are helping each other learn about agile development, by doing agile development, while benefiting non-profit organizations. It helps that they have a Fight Club inspired video. ...and if this is your first time at Scrum Club, you have to Scrum!
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Article: Lean and Agile, Marriage Made in Heaven or Oxymoron?
Dave West takes a look at the world views of the Agile and Lean communities and finds them in conflict. If true, then many of us in the community blending Lean and Agile and unaware of the inherent clash in ideals could be making some big mistakes. As an example of a manifestation of this conflict Dave takes the backlog.
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Presentation: Craftsmanship and Ethics
In this talk Robert C. Martin outlines the practices used by software craftsmen to maintain their professional ethics. He resolves the dilemma of speed vs. quality, and mess vs schedule. He provides a set of principles and simple Dos and Don'ts for teams who want to be counted as professional craftsmen.
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Should the Product Owner Be One Person Only?
Is the role of product owner a role that should be satisfied by only one person? There are those who say that there must be one person accountable - a single wringable neck. There are those that say that the expertise needed for a product owner cannot be satisfied by one person. There are many ideas in between about what and who a product owner should be.
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Refactoring Not a Substitute for Design
A member of the stack overflow community asked "Is design now a subset of refactoring?" The question highlights a common misunderstanding about the agile approach to emergent design. A common agile mantra is: "Test. Code. Refactor. Repeat!" This approach doesn't replace design; it simply spreads the work out over the life of the project.
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Interview: Software Design Helps Being Agile
In this interview made by InfoQ’s Deborah Hartmann during Agile 2008, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock talks about software design, the need for good design and the technical debt that might accumulate slowing down the development process. The conclusion is that agile developers should not disregard design.
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Adopting The Whole Enchilada
Recently InfoQ reported on Jim Shore's 'The Decline and Fall of Agile', which highlighted a trend for organizations to adopt "Agile" (in name) but fail to adopt what it means to be Agile (in practice). Community leaders such as Joshua Kerievsky, Martin Fowler, and Ron Jeffries have taken Shore's post a few steps further recently, posting their own thoughts on what's going on with this situation.
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Presentation: Agile Methods and User Centered Design
In this presentation filmed during ThoughtWorks’ Quarterly Technology Briefing, Dave Robertson and John Johnston explain what the Agile and User Centered Design’s (UCD) common denominators are, common values being the most important one in their opinion.
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Succession, an Agile Approach to Evolving Architecture
Kent Beck wrote 'First One, Then Many' to explain the application of Succession to software design. Succession is a technique for evolving the architecture of a system from 'just enough for now' to what will eventually be needed. The example given is for a system that only needs to process one transaction today, but will eventually need to process many.
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Announcement: Agile 2009 and XP 2009 Conference Submissions Ending Soon
The two flagship conferences for the Agile community occur each summer. This year Agile 2009 will be held Chicago during the week of August 24th while XP 2009 will be held in Sardinia (Italy) the week of May 26th. Submissions are still being accepted for both conferences for two more weeks.