Questions tagged [development-methodologies]
133 questions
91
votes
15 answers
How can I favor quick (and dirty) over clean (and slow) in practice?
Preface, TL;DR
This question is about the implied tradeoff between the speed of development and the quality of code.
I am looking for methodologies which can be followed in order to optimize development speed, even at the expense of code-quality and…
Gulzar
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85
votes
16 answers
Best Development Methodology for One Person?
I spend a lot of time working on projects in which I am the sole developer, project manager, designer, QT person (Yes, I know... Bad!), and sometimes I'm even the client.
I've tried just about everything for planning projects and managing myself,…
Eli
76
votes
25 answers
Frankly, do you prefer Cowboy coding?
Most programmers defending methodologies politically correct like Agile, Waterfall, RUP, etc. Some of them follow the methodology but not all of them. Frankly, if you can choose the methodology, you certainly would go to mainstream "correct"…
Maniero
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74
votes
10 answers
Why is agile all about the test-driven development (TDD) and not development-driven test (DDT)?
So I am new to agile, but not test-driven development. My professors in college were all about the idea of tests then code then tests. I am not sure I understand why. From my perspective it is a lot of upfront cost that will most likely be changed…
nerdlyist
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50
votes
10 answers
Graduate expectations versus reality
When choosing what we want to study, and do with our careers and lives, we all have some expectations of what it is going to be like. Now that I've been in the industry for almost a decade, I've been reflecting a bit on what I thought (back when I…
Bobby Tables
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47
votes
9 answers
Is there a viable alternative to the agile development methodology?
The two predominant software-development methodologies are waterfall and agile. When discussing these two, there is often much focus on the particular practices that distinguish them (pair programming, TDD, etc. vs. functional spec, big up-front…
Eric Wilson
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46
votes
7 answers
How to measure the potential value of refactoring
On an old, large project with technical debt how can you reliably estimate or measure the benefit of refactoring code?
For example, say you have some components within a software stack solution written in an older language, and some later…
Ewan
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42
votes
17 answers
Daily standups- yea or nay?
How valuable (or not) do you think daily stand-up meetings are?
If you're not familiar with it, this refers to a daily meeting that is part of Scrum adherents (and some other agile methodologies). The idea is that you hold a daily meeting,…
Fishtoaster
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38
votes
8 answers
How to cope with different development styles (top-down vs. bottom-up) in a team?
Say you've just started working in a very small team on a {currently relatively small, though hopefully bigger later} project. Note that this is an actual project intended to be used by other developers in the real world, not some academic project…
user541686
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29
votes
8 answers
Is this limitation of Test Driven Development (and Agile in general) practically relevant?
In Test Driven Development (TDD) you start with a suboptimal solution and then iteratively produce better ones by adding test cases and by refactoring. The steps are supposed to be small, meaning that each new solution will somehow be in the…
Frank Puffer
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27
votes
5 answers
Design in one team, coding in another
I will be involved in a project where all the software design is made by a local team and these designs are sent to an offshore team for coding.
This is the first time I face a project with this characteristics and for me it feels kind of odd: The…
Carlos Gavidia-Calderon
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26
votes
9 answers
Do I have the wrong idea about software engineering?
I have a question which has been raised by my latest job (rather intern).
Just to put things into context - I'm 21 and I've finished my 2nd year of university before that I've had around 2 years of experience doing sys admin/QA jobs and basically I…
Tyler Durden
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25
votes
1 answer
What is Developer Anarchy?
I've been reading about Developer (or Programmer) Anarchy, which seems to be billed as a post-Agile development methodology. I found a few resources on it (1, 2) but it doesn't seem to be a lot out there.
I was wondering if anyone had any good…
Martyn
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24
votes
11 answers
Is it possible to write software that doesn't need to be continually modified?
I have written a lot of software in many different languages, and I've also "written" hardware for use with FPGAs using Verilog and VHDL.
I tend to enjoy writing hardware more than software, and I think one of the primary reasons is that it is…
Nathan Farrington
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22
votes
7 answers
What do you deliver in the first couple of iterations in Agile?
As I understand, the idea with Agile methodologies is that you deliver something functional and you deliver it often. The application gets into its final shape increment after increment.
But in the early iterations you might build the framework or…
JohnDoDo
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