I enjoyed the article, even though I didn’t agree with all its assertions. Unlike so many people who criticize the Agile movement, this author knows what they’re talking about, both with regards to Agile and the foundational ideas of software engineering.

I disagree with some of Dorian’s criticisms, but only to the extent that the Agile community is too big to neatly characterize. And, as with all (I suspect) really big communities, what the masses do and think isn’t really reflective of what those in the know do and think. Dorian admits as much:

> I’m sure these things exist in some form or other; the point is they don’t get nearly as much attention.

I have to concede the point, although I don’t have to like it.

Anyway. The things he criticizes are discussed I in the Agile community, and have been for many years. Most of them, you’ve probably heard of. It’s just that they’ve been drowned out by the din of the Cargo Cult, and in the case of the more popular ideas, it’s not widely known that they were introduced by people who were active in the Agile community. Here’s some pointers.

Anything higher up the chain than project management: Lean Startup. Lean Software Development. Kanban.

Specificity gradient: I don’t know what Dorian meant by this, and the link went to a YouTube video I couldn’t be bothered to watch, so let’s call this one granted.

Conceptual Integrity: Domain-Driven Design, specifically its Ubiquitous Language. The CHECKS pattern language. Fit and the BDD movement.

(As an aside: Dorian has fallen for the common myth that waterfall originated in Royce’s paper. But Royce’s paper was ignored until the 1980s, when it was brought into the limelight by Barry Boehm as a vehicle to criticize standard practice and promote his Spiral Model alternative. See Bossavit, The Leprechauns of Software Engineering.)