[SystemSafety] Putting Agile into a longer perspective

[Olwen Morgan]

Oh, dear. Why did this one crop up at a time when I felt like having a 
real rant at it ... ?

There are some very good things about Agile. The continuous integration 
devops processes that support it are extremely useful in critical 
systems development. But the demagogues of Agile are missing a critical 
matter in software technology. Agile practices ideally require means for 
developing software that are so powerful and efficient that if you've 
got the software wrong, it's still affordable to throw it away and start 
again. (Not an original thought - AFAI recall, Tony Hoare said something 
to similar effect back in the early 1980s.)

Agile will work /*only*/ when we've made rigorous software development 
so streamlined that we can afford to throw incorrect systems away 
several times during the course of a project and yet still deliver 
within reasonable time and cost constraints.

Who is working to make such rigorous development cheap and efficient? 
... I don't know of anyone who I think actually understands the essence 
of the problems enough to get going on a credible project. I've got some 
ideas on how one might make a start, but every time I speak to people 
about them, they appear to think I'm bonkers - and for all I know, maybe 
they're right.


plus ca change,

Olwen



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