Re: A few good pints
I think the real problem is the cargo cult approach to any methodology that is taken by many users. The problem is exacerbated by consultants who make a living telling people the "right" way to do whatever is fashionable at the moment.
There's no one right way to do things in all cases. As was said years ago in a different context "there is no silver bullet". Managers and developers still have to know what they are doing, and they have to apply techniques that are suitable to the project at hand within the industry they are operating in and appropriate to the size of the team and the personnel involved. In other words, we need competent people and they have to think about what they are doing.
The main problem that people have with unit tests is writing them to satisfy a "code coverage" metric rather than using them to find problems. In other words, a useful tool has become subverted because process is elevated over result.
And that pretty much sums up with what has happened to agile in general. It has been systematized into the antithesis of what it was supposed to be, which is the elimination of bureaucracy so that people can get on with the job of producing something useful.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
