The Methodology Doesn't Matter, It's Having One That Counts

Methodologies can get very religious. Should we be doing TDD? Should we use Waterfall? Should we have stand-up meetings? What sort of continuous delivery should we use?

A few years back I was diagnosed as having type 2 diabetes. At the time I was diagnosed I was not particularly overweight and my diet was not too unhealthy. But I was coming out of a time in my life where I had been overweight and I used to snack a lot. At one of the places where I had worked there had been a food table where you could help yourself to the food and my desk was right next to it. As I used to really enjoy my sweet food it and I didn’t do much exercise it was a health disaster waiting to happen. Now days I eat healthier, have fewer sugary foods and I also exercise regularly.

In my opinion not having a methodology is much like not having a healthy lifestyle. Your code becomes overweight with bug fixes, and getting the code out of the door, much like getting yourself out of bed when you are overweight, can be quite a chore.

I am a great believer in the idea that not only the way you write code, but also the process involved in the delivery of it are highly coupled to the quality of the code. So for me, having a methodology is like having an exercise regime. The methodology helps keep your code leaner and there is a greater chance of pushing the quality of your code higher.

With a healthy lifestyle it doesn’t matter what exercises you do as long as you do something, the same applies to your software development methodology.

It doesn’t matter which methodology you follow as long as you have one.

 

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