Quick Rant on the word Agile
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- Inigo Montoya, in The Princess Bride
The word agile, I fear, has lost its meaning. Originally it referred to a specific practice of software development, that contrasted itself with the Waterfall model of development.
Under Waterfall dev, you spend elaborate amounts of time up front, building 50+ page design documents, wire-framing, etc.
Perhaps I’m so far removed from Fortune 500 companies and non web-based applications, that I’m missing the forest for the trees here.
No one I know does Waterfall style development anymore. Getting Real is pretty much the new manifesto for how its done these days.
So now when I hear the word agile, my eyes tend to glaze over.
After all, if you’re not agile, what exactly are you trying to be?
Here are some antonyms for the word agile that I found online:
brittle, clumsy, stiff, inactive, unintelligent & stupid
Via synonym.com and answers.com.
After all, can you really hear someone saying something like?:
We prefer to be less nimble. For each iteration, it is our goal to have to refactor as much code as possible. Be like the Elephant, not the Cheetah — that’s our development philosophy.
No, of course not. Everyone thinks they are “agile“.
