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Comment by ktRolster | Hacker News Reader

3 developers were advocating a total rewrite and a pivot to a different stack.

Those were not good developers; ie, there are some skills they were clearly lacking.

I've lived through the opposite situation as you: management left the company, and we continued to release for the next few months without any management at all.

The key, I think, was that the managers had pushed the decision making down. Everyone took turns being scrum master......so when the next sprint came, we elected a new scrum master and carried on.

Fred Brooks pointed out that with a group of competent programmers, any development methodology can work. The best development methodologies help programmers become self-sufficient (teaching them the skills if they don't have them), instead of trying to micro-manage.

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You didn't go through the opposite situation - the parent talks about shedding the Agile process and going for new ad-hoc methodology. You talk about simply electing a new scrum master, continuing business-as-usual.

You're actually supporting the GP's point, in that you had a good result due to maintaining good practices; 'good people' do not automatically make good software regardless of practice.

>You're actually supporting the GP's point,

Part of the GGP's point was that management has a role to play, and that they know things developers don't. That is the conclusion I was responding to.

You are right too, of course, we still had a process.

> Those were not good developers; ie, there are some skills they were clearly lacking.

Ok, fine... I'll be that guy: No True Scotsman. If you define "good developers" as developers that can successfully create software without management, then yes a group of "good developers" can successfully create software without management.

When developers are trying to do Things You Should Never Do Part 1 ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html ), then it's fair to say that they are lacking some skills. I don't think you should call that a 'no true Scotswoman'

That's fair. I think the vague approach of "they were clearly lacking skills" was what triggered my response. In this case, there's a justifiable position there. But a lot of details could have changed, and that vague statement could still be blanket applied.

That's fair. I think the vague approach of "they were clearly lacking skills" was what triggered my response.

Understandable. My comment was already getting to long, and I didn't have space to explain every detail.

BTW, if you feel members on your development team aren't capable of self-managing, this book is really good to help you develop those skills: http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Coder-Conduct-Professional-Progr...

Self-management is something every programmer should have in their skill-set.

Surprisingly, never heard of that book. I'll definitely be taking a look, thanks.

Here's another good book I recommend while we're at it: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0996193308

(disclaimer: I wrote it :)

A "no true scotsman" argument would define good developers as developers who "don’t need velocity, daily stand ups, points estimations, spikes, scrum masters to deliver high quality software".

A different standard, such as not engaging in rash rewrites that disqualifies someone from the "good developer" category, would keep this from becoming a "no true scotsman" argument.

> Those were not good developers

Nailed it.

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