-- The Counsels of the Great Yu
Book of Documents as translated by James Legge
I am interested in anything which gets people's emotions on fire. When I saw the twitter firestorm around Erik Meijer's presentation "One Hacker Way" I knew I had to see it for myself.
One Hacker Way - Erik Meijer from Reaktor on Vimeo.
It has been a few days since that viewing and overall I have to say he has some good points.
Is this the best presentation I've ever seen? No. Is every minute the best possible thing you could do we your time? No. Could it make you think about the way you do your work? Most likely yes.
I got three points from the talk:
- We talk too much about code and do not write enough of it.
- Code which delivers value to someone is the ultimate goal, everything else is either giving context to the code or noise.
- We need to seek real feedback and adjust.
We talk too much about code and do not write enough of it. Erik starts off the presentation asking his audience at a developer conference how many of them check in code last week? He then tells those that did not that maybe they should leave. Harsh but to the point.
There is a lot of talk about code in our industry, there are whole conferences and alliances around how best to get others to write code. Do not take my word for it, read this blog post titled "Agile is Dead" by Dave Thomas an Agile Manifesto signer. In his post Dave talks about how the term Agile has become meaningless, instead of following the principles leading to the Agile Manifesto a whole industry has formed to sell Agile.
"When the relationship between superiors and subordinates becomes disordered, at first the subordinates usurp the actuality (i.e. real power), but continue to preserve the name. Once the usurpation has lasted for some time, though, the name is appropriated and usurped as well."
-- Wang Fuzhi
Commentary on Confucius Analects 13.14
Translated by Edward Slingerland
The term Agile has been usurped and has become meaningless. At one time it did have a meaning and here is what it was:
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
-- Manifesto for Agile Software
"Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software."
Instead of prompting the left side of the manifesto the usurpers are selling the right side. I believe this is is what Erik calls a disease of our industry. Instead of talking about how to write code which delivers value and seeks feedback faster we are having people talk about tools, certifications, and overhead.
Code which delivers value to someone is the ultimate goal, everything else is either giving context to the code or noise. This goes straight to the heart of the Agile Manifesto: "Working software over comprehensive documentation" and "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation". If we are professionals then we need to focus on what the job is. What is that job being asked of us? Delivering working software with the features found through customer collaboration.
We are not paid to move stickies across a board, we are paid to deliver working software which meets the customers needs. This is what is meant by "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" in the Agile Manifesto, tools and processes are to be used to reach the goal of working software which delivers value to the customer. If you find that having stickies helps you in achieving this goal then use them.
-- Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
"Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project."
"At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."
We need to "Responding to change over following a plan". We need to seek real feedback and adjust.
"At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."
As Heraclitus would say, everything is in motions, everything is becoming, nothing is constant except change itself. If we cannot change along with our customer's needs then we are dead.
Is "One Hacker Way" the greatest call to action ever? No. Do I agree with everything in it? No. Do I agree with most of it? No. Did I find the three main points valid? Yes.
