Religion driven industry? Buzzwords and checklists vs. thinking and inspection

I'm treading on dangerous ground here, but I'm not sure Jim Coplien should be taken as an authority on TDD or Agile in general. On page 1 of his book, Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development:

O.K., we'll be frank: we chose "Agile" for the title out of marketing concerns. It seems to be the current term of choice for the kinds of things we describe in this book. It is a term that rolls off the tongue more easily than other clever names that clamor for your attention on today's bookshelves. ...

“integration and system testing have long been demonstrated to be the least efficient way of finding bugs”

O.K., we'll be frank: we chose "Agile" for the title out of marketing concerns. It seems to be the current term of choice for the kinds of things we describe in this book. It is a term that rolls off the tongue more easily than other clever names that clamor for your attention on today's bookshelves.

I read James' posts regularly and normally enjoy them, but I thought this hid a good message with an unfortunate dig at TDD, checklists and New Agile (whatever that is..).

Thinking test-first is, in all situations I can think of, better than test-last. Is it a substitute for holostic quality assurance? Of course not, it's just another weapon in the arsenal. Are checklists a substitute for thinking? Again, no. And so on.

His underlying theme, which is that IT in many organisations (although I'm not keen on vast generalisations) is missing something by not understanding software history, getting hooked on bandwagons, buzzwords and one-size-fits-all religions is IMO on the money. And sure, I've seen plenty of bad examples of TDD, and an overdependence on 'process' over common sense, but that don't make 'em all bad. It just means common sense ain't that common.

Part of the problem is that the term "Agile" is overloaded. But in my view this is not the type of overloaded we're most familiar with, nor is it a wise step to let the current movement have sway.

I run into this all the time: When I say, "I'm making my system agile", or I'm using an "agile technique", I'm using the dictionary definition of the word, and there's no way that I'm going to allow book publishers and process theorists to steal a very useful English word from my lexicon, no matter how great their process is. When we say "agile" it means exactly what the dictionary says it means, as far as I'm concerned.

This differs from "Scrum" in that the terminology, when applied to a technique or process, is just not easy, nor perhaps even possible, to confuse the usage with rugby football, where I think its more frequently used.

So it's perfectly acceptable for Jim, or anyone, to use the term agile, and in a sense, protect a term from misuse by marketers and theorists. Perhaps the theorists can use the Special Theory of Relativity example, if they want to specialize the Agile term, and say something more identifiable, such as "Agile Process of Test Driven Design". Otherwise, they just don't have a claim. Unless they want to be like one of those more unethical organizations that try to and sometimes succeed at trademarking a common word for an overly broad purpose.

This might all seem like terminology and shibboleths, but the cream of the crop of today is the stinking cheese of tomorrow. We all watched and learned a thing here and there from the XP zealots, taking their advice under advisement, and it was a good thing, but where is all that today? The Agile TDD process is going to morph and change, and eventually be replaced by some new religious dogma, and hopefully along the path we all learned something. But the English language will still have a great little word that still just as useful for describing whatever it is we feel like :-)

I think even more interesting is applying Jim's ideas to the RESTefarians who seem intent on their way being the only way and cutting down anyone who dares question GET, PUT, POST and DELETE as being the one true integration technique. Now there's great little example of turning good ideas into bad blood, and a great way to start arguments whenever I feel like it ;D

The norm for reasoning about adopting ideas is a pyramid. The majority forming the base are 'religious' thinkers. What matters is who supports the idea. We will let those people do our thinking for us, we trust them. The next layer in the pyramid is the political layer. We listen to the discussion, we think we understand it, we are convinced. Again, the people who support the idea are a significant consideration, but we're prepared to accept good ideas from other sources if people can convince us, and we're prepared to accept that or 'guru' might not be right on the ball all the time. Above these people are the scientific and finally the mathematic thinkers. Even the Scientific thinkers cannot check and verify everything; they build up a network of people whose work has so far proved to be correct, and whose endorsement of other people's work can be trusted.

This is to be expected. We cannot change this reality much. We need to learn how to get this reality to work in our favour. Unfortunately, politicians and con-men are well aware of this model; we have competition. As a cynic, I'd have to add that Politicians ultimately control the education that can alter the shape of the pyramid, and they like having some people they can fool all the time.

I'll give him credit for candor, though it would have been better to leave "Agile" out of his title. Agile has become primarily a marketing platform.

I agree with his points about not having data to back up assertions made in support of agile (or the latest buzzword).

I must have touched a nerve made raw somewhere else.

Suggesting that it would have been better to leave Agile out of the title is hardly character assination. My comment was based on what you wrote in the forward to your book about the need to put Agile in the title for marketing purposes. Hence my comment about Agile being a marketing platform.

BTW, I started a thread on Agile becoming primarily a marketing platform several months ago on the Agile Management Yahoo Group, so that is not a comment aimed at you. Your comments in your forward do confirm that though.