Re: Holistic, Rational, Scientific Development: An Outline

From: kurth (kurth_at_avanade.com)
Date: 09/30/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:07:04 -0600

"Universe" <universe@tAkEcovad.OuT.net> wrote in message
news:udcml09kgq1cak43rbmiiof0ljsphh5eqn@4ax.com...
> Andrew McDonagh <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote:
>
>> Universe wrote:
>> >>>And as I see "rationalism" it's more so as I state in another post
>> >>>today: the ability of proven knowledge - that is *theory* - to
>> >>>rationally inform and *lead* our work practice.
>> >
>> >
>> > I differ from Webster's in stressing that reason, theory, reasoning
>> > conceptualization should play the *leading" role, in our activities
>> > while practice should verify.
>> >
>> > Directly opposed to that, philosophical pragmatism and empiricism that
>> > underlie XP places greater emphasis on the results of recent, or
>> > immediate practice. It favors the aphorism, "if it works do it".
>
>> 'Applying' the XP practise do indeed favor gaining and using what ever
>> knowledge can be gained from the most recent work.
>
> But without:
> ` first reviewing related, or contextual work for a time period
> domain experts deem appropriate for the matter prior
> ` secondly doing at least minimal overall investigation of key
> relevant aspects
>
> doing whatever seems to work right now easily leads to at best the need
> to reverse work and at worst serious failure.
>
>> > Whereas I emphasize the value of studying prior, historical, or already
>> > summarized experience in what we are doing and applying lessons learned
>> > creatively according to specific context. This is the 1st part of what
>> > I
>> > mean by "theory leads".
>
>> But this sounds exactly like the approach that Beck et al took with how
>> projects they had previously worked upon and resulted in what we all
>> know as XP.
>
> While some times XP verbiage talks about:
>> > ... studying prior, historical, or already
>> > summarized experience in what we are doing and applying lessons learned
>> > creatively according to specific context
>
> Overall, XP promotes going with whatever currently is working. Being
> objective that is their *main* characteristic--look, and feel. How
> often have you honestly read/heard *most* XP notables emphasize applying
> the rational take. Even Beck's overall look and feel is "do it now".
>

Kinda like recommending to a lawyer the night before an court appearance,
"get dressed before bed and you can sleep in longer." When someone with
experience sleeping in his clothes says, "thats a terrible idea for a
lawyer. You will wrinkle your clothes and look unprofessional." <pause/>
"Well duh, that happens when you sleep in your clothes, use common
sence!".... hmmm.... So why then would you suggest it to a lawyer?
<pause_and_scratch_chin/> thats what me think too.

>> > The 2nd part of what "theory leads" is that our current activity should
>> > be mapped out in always amenable theory, ideas as a plan. "Amenable"
>> > plans means that they may modified, or replaced in toto during the
>> > course of project IID - iterative and incremental development.
>> >
>> > Amenable plans should largely be constructed based upon:
>> > ` ideas, theory, thinking, concepts, reasoning from prior activity in
>> > contextually similar and relevant circumstances
>> > ` ideas, theory, thinking, concepts, reasoning resulting from
>> > investigation, and discovery of the current project context, and
>> > goals.
>> >
>> > Plans may be modified based upon system user, management, domain
>> > expert,
>> > or developer feedback from activities during the course of the project.
>> > Projects should have:
>> > ` a panoply of mechanisms for eliciting and incorporating feedback
>> > during its IID
>> > ` multiple times of regularly scheduled feedback sessions between
>> > system users, management, domain experts, and or developers.
>
>> Isn't that what XP strives for, but traditional aapproaches discouraged?
>
> Yes. But this is about the whole approaches which in essence are
> opposed.
>
>> > A 3rd related facet of this is that the project should evaluate, weigh,
>> > tradeoff and otherwise make decisions with a holistic, systems
>> > perspective.
>> > They should be made always after understanding and
>> > considering together as whole, all key relevant parts of the whole
>> > project. What is part and what is whole differs each kind of project
>> > decision. But both the particular whole and parts involved should
>> > identified and handled in the foregoing manner for all major project
>> > decisions.
>
>> Absolutely, even on an XP project the customer would take the same
>> approach when making decisions. And importantly, it happens all the
>> time, not just at the beginning or at major milestones.
>
> XP does not stress making this kind of decision in anything, but a
> secondary way in what I've read.
>
>> > Of course this means employing a use case leading, model drive
>> > architecture approach as with UP and MDA at OMG. [See www.omg.com for
>> > details.]
>
>> From my experience I have to disagree.
>
> That's a fundamental difference. From industry literature and stats -
> Gardner, JD Power, the journals & others - the mainstream does apply use
> case led, MDA, you and XP don't.
>
>> > High level system design should explicitly be based upon or embed an
>> > object model of real actual domain entities and processes that a play
>> > and role insofar as they are relevant to project use cases as whole -
>> > project scope. There are a number of reasons this help create the most
>> > optimal OO designs, and I will detail in soon to follow posts over the
>> > next 2-3 days.
>> >
>> > Finally for completion the project should apply relevant contextually
>> > objective facts and a scientific: hypothesis, experiment, theory back
>> > to
>> > practice and so on approach.
>> >
>> > These are significant kind of rational holistic practices and
>> > viewpoints
>> > that a truly "scientifico-engineering" approach to software development
>> > takes.
>> >
>> > That is as opposed to the:
>> > ` piecemeal
>> > ` frequent stovepipe design cul-de-sac waste of resources turnaround
>> > ` part above whole designs and decisions
>> > ` coder-centric
>> > nature of XP project development.
>> >
>> > Again, for those whom haven't *actually* read up on the essentials of
>> > UP
>> > and MDA to best contribute to improving OO and software engineering,
>> > which should be the intent, the goal of discussion on these matters.
>> > It
>> > is at least as far as I am concerned.
>>
>> Elliot, you may have posted intending to discuss ways of improving OO
>> and software engineering, but for me at least, it reads more like an UP
>> & MDA vs XP rant.
>
> A rant would not raise *concrete* *specific* major differences. Your
> pro-XP stance obviously would make you sour on this.
>
>> If you truly want to discuss ways of improving OO & software
>> Engineering, then can we at least stop the process wars that this group
>> is having....its akin to Unix vs Windows vs Mac... its also boring.
>
> Process is at the core of improving OO & software
> Engineering.
>
> And you would have a better grasp of XP as espoused by its notables on
> comp.object, by reading Google archives of *years* of debates where a
> cursory perusal would inform a comp.object newbie ( < 1 year ) of the
> wars revealing the true look and feel of XP--and Beck was in on it also.
>
> Plus read all of XP/Jeffries Wiki and the other XP web places
> objectively and the obviousness of how the above matches actual XP look
> and feel comes across again.
>
> Elliott
> --
> How can Bush be winning on terrorism when:
> ~ the war in Iraq diverts military and $$$
> from Al Queda et al?
> ~ Iraq is NOW a tremendous hot bed of terrorism?
> How can Bush be an expert at foreign affairs when:
> ~ he's bungling the war in Iraq as just judged BY
> INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS?
> ~ he's alienated and worsened world US support?

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