Grampa Speaks

I remember way back when Extreme Programming and all this agile stuff was new and edgy. At the same time, it hearkened further back, to times when we had all written great software, responding to our customer’s needs with some fantastic kind of creativity and team spirit. All the good things from our best days were there, and there were new things as well, to cancel out some of the bad things that had always seemed to be a necessary part of the good.

A number of us were writing about these ideas. We used to get together to talk, argue and think about what was going on and how it could change the world. For a time, there was even a book in our mind’s eye, to be written by Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, Ken Auer. They were even going to let me be part of it.

We met and corresponded with all the current names in Agile, and with many more people who were interested and excited. New names arrived, contributed, explained, questioned, built on to the ideas.

There was the famous Snowbird meeting where we wrote the Agile Manifesto. Look at that list of names, all together in one room for a few days, hammering out an understanding of what we were about. We built on one another, argued with one another. It was marvelous.

Quickly, what we were doing polarized the development world. Great contributors came out of the woodwork, some of whom came to Snowbird, and some of whom came along later. The movement spawned books, sessions at major conferences, and international conferences of its own. We had news groups, mailing lists. We even had serious detractors who were there to explain that the ideas were too radical, couldn’t possibly work, that we were deranged if not evil. Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, mama.

It was great! We had a fire and an energy that was exciting, uplifting, energetic, all good things. We had a mission and a piece of the truth.