TITLE: Agile Hippies?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 22, 2009  5:18 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
The last two class days in my Software Engineering course,
I have introduced students to agile software development.
Here is a recent Twitter exchange between me and student
in the course:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<B>Student</B>: Agile development is the hippy approach
to programming.
<BR/><BR/>
<B>Eugene</B>: @student: "Agile development is the hippy
approach to programming." Perhaps... If valuing people
makes me a hippie, so be it.
<BR/><BR/>
<B>Student</B>: @wallingf I leave it up to the individual
whether they interpret that as good or bad. Personally, I
prefer agile, but am also a free spirit
<BR/><BR/>
<B>Eugene</B>: @student It's just rare that anyone would
mistake me for a hippie...
<BR/><BR/>
<B>Student</B>: @wallingf you do like the phrase "roll my
own" a lot
</BLOCKQUOTE>

I guess I can never be sure what to expect when I tell
a story.  I've been talking about agile approaches with
colleagues for a decade, and teaching them to students
off and on since 2002.  No student has ever described
agile to me as hippie-style development development.

As I think about it from the newcomer's perspective,
though, it makes sense.  Consider
<A HREF="http://lizkeogh.com/2009/09/21/change-and-keep-changing/">
   Change, and keep changing</A>,
a recent article by Liz Keogh:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Sometimes people ask me, "When we've gone Agile ... what
will it look like?" ...

Things will be changing.  You'll be in a better place to
respond to change.  Your people will have a culture of
courage and respect, and will seek continuous improvement,
feedback and learning.  ...

I have no idea what skills your people will need.  The
people you have are good people; start with them. ...

There is no end-state with Agile or Lean. You'll be
improving, and continue to improve, trying new things
out and discarding the ones which don't work.  ...
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I love Liz Keogh's stuff.  Is this article representative
of the agile community?  I think so, at least of a vibrant
part of it.  Reading this article as I did right after
participating in the above exchange, I can see what the
student means.

I do not think there is a necessary connection between
hippie culture and a preference for agile development.
I am <EM>so</EM> not a hippie.  Ask anyone who knows me.
I see agile ideas from a perspective of pragmatism.
Change happens.  Responding to it, if possible, is
better than trying to ignore it while it happens before
my eyes.

Then again, a lot of my friends in the agile community
probably were hippies, or could have been.  The Lisp
and Smalltalk worlds have long been sources of agile
practice, and I am willing to speculate that the
counterculture has long been over-represented there.
Certainly, those worlds are countercultural amid the
laced up corporate world of Cobol, PL/I, and Java.

I decided to google "agile hippie" to see who else
has talked about this connection.  The
<A HREF="http://www.codesqueeze.com/when-everybodys-responsibility-becomes-nobodys-responsibility/">
   top hit</A>
talks about common code ownership as "hippie socialism"
and highlights the need for a strong team leader to make
XP work.  Hmm.  Then the
<A HREF="http://www.dreamsongs.com/IHE/IHE-28.html">
   second hit</A>
is an essay by Lisp guru and countercultural thinker
Richard Gabriel.  It refers to agile methodologies as
rising from the world of paid consultants and open-source
software as the hippie thing.

One of Gabriel's points in this essay echoes something
I told my students today: the difference between
traditional and agile approaches to software is a matter
of degree and style, not a difference in kind.  I told
my students that nearly all software development these
days is iterative development, more or less.  The agile
community simply prefers and encourages an even tighter
spiral through the stages of development.  Feedback is
good.

Folks may see a hippie connection in agile's emphasis
on conversation, working together, and close teamwork.
One thing I like about the Gabriel essay is its mention
of transparency -- being more open about the process
to the rest of the world, especially the client.  I
need to bring this element out explicitly in my
presentation, too,

Maybe even the most straight-laced of agile developers
have a touch of hippie radical inside them.
-----