CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2007/wiki3 10 tm

The Agile debate. Perhaps the most prominent controversy in o-o design today is whether it is possible to do a robust design with as little advance planning as agile methodologies recommend. Research this issue, on the Web and in the ACM DL, and report (fairly) on the major arguments of both sides, and on the evidence for both positions.

What is 'Agile Methodologies'?

Agile Methodology was introduced as an iterative approach for developing software as a counter to waterfall approach. Where the five main phases of waterfall (requirement, design, codeing, integration, testing) are practiced through every iteration, where iteration take 1-2 week(s). Moreover, it put more practices in term of coding and testing together, as: Test drivin design; Unit testing; Refactoring; Pair programming; Collective ownership; Simple design; Metaphor; Continuous integration; and Customer access.
Previous practices were introduced to achieve certain values (Communication, Feedback, Courage, Simplicity, Respect). It is true that these practices will help to provide the best environement for these values to exist. Neverthless, many of these practices acquire the existance of these values in the project, the company, the manegment, the individuals, and moreover the customer. Certain enough these values represent a moral and professional values that should exist in every social and individual system, neverthless we recognize there variation in every system. Also many of these values might be out of the control as simplicity of the software or the courage of the customer. The author think that is why Agile approach will give even a better results in different area such as R&D or education, where these values exist.
Many Agile methodologies are introduced in the last decade (XP, Scrum, DSDM, FDD, Lean, Adaptive, Crystal). It would be very difficult to introduce every aspect of these methodology in this wiki. That is why current wiki will concentrate in the most popular methodology XP (Extreme Programming), although will provide links to other methodologies as well.

Arguments *Against* Agile Methodologies

lack of structure and necessary documentation only works with senior-level developers incorporates insufficient software design requires too much cultural change to adopt can lead to more difficult contractual negotiations

• "Towards Extreme(ly) Usable Software"
  

• "Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP "
  
• "Questioning Extreme Programming"
  
• "The Agile Method and Other Fairly Tales", *.PDF
  
• "Opinion: Extreme Programming Is Evil"
  
• Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design"
  
• "The Case Against Extreme Programming"
  
• "Xp Critique"
  
• "The Case Against Extreme Programming"
  

Arguments *Support* Agile Methodologies

"Are agile methods good for design?" is a blog of an instructor, Alex Bunardzic, where he shares his in class experience when he was teaching Principle of Least Astonishment. The example that he gave in class is the Ruby on Rails code where he suggests using <%yield%> instead of <%content_for_layout%> to demonstrate this principle. This web page is not a good start to learn the topic, but it gives the idea of the principle and it demonstrates it with the Ruby on Rails code which is very related to what we have been doing in our class.

Success Stories

• "Breaking the Ice for Agile Development of Embedded Software: An Industry Experience Report"
  
• "Agile enterprise software development using domain-driven design and test first"
  

Agile Methodologies in Other Disciplines

Education

• "Extreme Learning"
• "A cross-program investigation of students' perceptions of agile methods"
• "eXtreme Programming at universities: an educational perspective"
  

Project Manegment

• "Developments in Agile Project Management"

R&D

• "agile practices for R&D projects"
  

Conclusion

This wiki is intended to be a Guide for Principle of Least Astonishment. It provides many links to online sources that explains the topic simply with easy-to-understand examples, and/or gives an idea where this principle can be used in real-life. These links should be helpful for the ones who want to learn more on this topic or understand the topic in more detail.

This principle can be used in many different disciplines for a universal useful solution for good designs. But it should be taken into consideration that the principle goes parallel with common sense, although it may not go with the convention.

"Who Stole Agile?"

External Links by Side

Against

• "Kevin Brady Blog" from The Art of Unix Programming by E.S. Raymond
• "Wikipedia"
• "Confessions of a Coder"

With

• "Site finding system faces suspension"
• "Applying the Rule of Least Surprise in webpages"

External Links by Methodology

XP

• "XP over Eclipse"