Hunt Andrew - Practices of an agile developer: working in the real world

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That Turkish proverb above is both simple and obviousyoud think it would be a guiding force for software development. But alltoo often, developers (including your humble authors) continuedown the wrong road in the misguided hope that it will be OKsomehow. Maybe its close enough. Maybe this isnt really aswrong a road as it feels. We might even get away with it now and then,if creating software were a linear, deterministicprocesslike the proverbial road. But its not.

Instead, software development is more like surfingits a dynamic, ever-changing environment. The sea itself is unpredictable, risky, and there may be sharks in those waters.

But what makes surfing so challenging is that every wave is different . Each wave takes its unique shape and behavior based on its localea wave in a sandy beach is a lot different from a wave that breaks over a reef, for instance.

In software development, the requirements and challengesthat come up during your project development are yourwavesnever ceasing and ever-changing. Like the waves,software projects take different shapes and pose differentchallenges depending on your domain and application. Andsharks come in many different guises.