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Comment by feyn | Hacker News Reader

(me = author)

My bones ache from seeing Rational Unified Process mentioned, but of course you are correct.

I would say I was "at the point where I almost (didn't) care" about 5 years ago. I then switched jobs and was made lead of a team I cared about, and decided I wasn't done with implementing Agile. There was a time, however, when I was downright apathetic. Companies had beaten me down too much, and I didn't have the energy to fight anymore, so I completely understand.

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Interestingly enough, I'm actually a fan of RUP, IF you instantiate it without requiring all the UML artifacts and what-not. One thing I like about RUP is that it emphasizes that you perform work in each area (requirements, design, implementation, etc.) in each iteration. To me, it emphasizes the "iterative" aspect of "iterative development" better than, say, (naive) Scrum.

I also prefer the term "iteration" to "sprint" because the "sprint" analogy breaks down in that you can't actually SPRINT -> SPRINT -> SPRINT -> SPRINT forever and ever in reality. And to me, it just creates the wrong mindset. Admittedly it's a minor quibble though.

I learned RUP before Agile, and didn't hate it. I only learned if you like one thing you necessarily have to hate something else later in life. Aspects of RUP make it into my interpretation of agile. For example, I teach my dev teams UML (sketching as defined in Fowler's book) for whiteboarding and the rare BDUF, which RUP exposed me to. Speaking of BDUF, I've saved many a feature by resorting to BDUF when communication broken down.

I didn't and don't want to start a flame war, but needless to say once in an interview I was asked if I was a "Scrum Master" (after having about 15 years of agile experience). When I stopped laughing, I said, "No, no I am not." I don't think they got the joke, and no - I didn't get the job.

I don't think "iteration" vs "sprint" is a minor quibble. I've seen the "wrong mindset" you speak of, as people take "sprints" far too literally. It's not a sprint, it's a jog. A long, long jog. You'll be stopping for water and stretching along the way. Sprinting is a good way to pull a muscle and have all your devs quit on your one day, leaving you with a big-old case of backlog rhabdomyolysis. I took that analogy way too far.

I learned RUP before Agile, and didn't hate it.

Same.

I only learned if you like one thing you necessarily have to hate something else later in life.

ROFLMFAO.

Aspects of RUP make it into my interpretation of agile.

Same here.

For example, I teach my dev teams UML (sketching as defined in Fowler's book) for whiteboarding and the rare BDUF, which RUP exposed me to.

Yep. My issue is, a lot of people see a dichotomy where you have "big design up front" or "no design at all". I like to talk about "sufficient design up front". I don't know if I coined the term or not, but that's my favored way of expressing that middle-ground, as I see it.

backlog rhabdomyolysis

I'm so going to steal that. :-)

I shall in turn steal Sufficient Design Up Front (SDUF)

I like the old "just barely good enough" as a description of the amount of design required. It means basically the same thing but is a bit clearer about how sufficient things need to be.

I'd never heard that before, but I like it.

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