I agree that avoiding Microsoft is a good measure. However, my fear was that someone had successfully hacked my email or had somehow set up a Microsoft account ‘on my behalf’. If someone opened a Microsoft account with my email and impersonated me, I wouldn’t be able to safely ignore the emails 🥲 But I get and agree with the broader point that we should stay away from Microsoft!
I appreciate your candor about not wanting to speak on topics outside your expertise. That’s commendable. I wonder if we can still talk with the understanding that we may not know it all. I truly believe curiosity is able to sidestep many of the problems related with ignorance.
You’re right to be cautious about appeals to authority. My intention wasn’t to suggest NASA’s use of Agile validates it universally, but rather to counter the OP comic’s implication that Agile is inherently incapable of achieving significant goals like space exploration.
Regarding Agile-like practices in earlier NASA projects, you’re correct that concrete evidence is limited. However, we can analyze their approaches through the lens of Agile principles. Scrum, for instance, aims to foster characteristics found in high-performing teams: clear goals, information saturation, rapid feedback loops, adaptability to changing requirements, and effective collaboration. These elements aren’t exclusive to Scrum or even to modern Agile methodologies. The key is recognizing that effective project management often naturally gravitates towards these principles, whether formally adopting Agile or not.
It’s an interesting area for further research: have complex engineering projects historically incorporated elements we now associate with Agile? If so, how?
Your skepticism is valuable in pushing for a more nuanced understanding of project management across different domains.
It’s a set of apps that help you sync files between devices. It does so without relying on a centralized server, which is a curse (because you need the devices to be on and online) and a blessing (because it can be fast and private). I use it every day. It’s great!
I can see you’re frustrated by the downvotes and pushback you’ve received. It’s understandable to feel defensive when your viewpoint isn’t well-received. I appreciate you sharing your perspective, even if it goes against the majority opinion here.
Your points about the space shuttle program’s challenges are valid and worth discussing. It’s important to note the timeframes involved though. The shuttle was developed in the 1970s, well before agile methodologies emerged in the 1990s and 2000s.
Interestingly, one could argue that NASA may have used agile-like practices in the space shuttle program, even if they weren’t labeled as such at the time. However, I did a quick search and couldn’t find much concrete evidence to support this idea. It’s an intriguing area that might merit further research.
Regarding modern agile approaches, while no method is perfect, many organizations have found them helpful for improving flexibility and delivering value incrementally. NASA’s recent use of agile for certain projects shows they’re open to evolving their methods.
I’m curious to hear more about your thoughts on software development approaches for complex engineering projects. What do you see as the pros and cons of different methodologies? Your insights could add a lot to this discussion.
Edgy meme: Claims agile doesn’t work
NASA: “Yep, we are agile” https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160006387/downloads/20160006387.pdf?attachment=true
Your comparison is interesting, but let’s consider some historical facts. The Apollo program, which successfully put humans on the moon, actually employed many principles we now associate with Agile methodologies.
Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t a straightforward Waterfall process. NASA used daily stand-up meetings, self-organizing teams, and iterative development cycles - core Agile practices. In fact, Mariana Mazzucato’s book ‘Mission Economy’ provides fascinating insights into how the moon landing project incorporated elements remarkably similar to modern Agile approaches.
While it’s true that building rockets isn’t identical to software development, the underlying principles of flexibility, collaboration, and rapid iteration proved crucial to the mission’s success. The Apollo program adapted constantly to new challenges, much like Agile teams do today.
Regarding Kanban and Scrum, you’re right that they fall under the Agile umbrella. However, each offers unique tools that can be valuable in different contexts, even outside of software.
Perhaps instead of dismissing Agile outright for hardware projects, we could explore how its principles might be adapted to improve complex engineering endeavors. After all, if it helped us reach the moon, it might have more applications than we initially assume.
A friend of mine and I have gotten used to using it during our conversations. We do fast fact-checking or find a good first opinion regarding silly topics. We often find it faster than digging through search-engine results and interpreting scattered information. We have used it for thought experiments, intuitive or ELI5 explanations of topics that we don’t really know about, finding peer-reviewed sources for whatever it is that we’re interested in, or asking questions that operationalizing into effective search engine prompts would be harder than asking with natural language. We always always ask for citations and links, so that we can discard hallucinations.
Humans care about belonging and fairness. Profit is one type of political good that can be distributed based on different criteria, for example by selling a good or a service or by stealing or copying someone’s code. But profit is not the only political good that exists. There’s also relevance. There is credit. There is legitimacy.
TL;DR: Money is not the only thing that humans care about. Humans also care about fairness.
The article’s “valuing your time” argument is problematic in certain contexts. My brother has had so much trouble with his dual-boot (Windows and Linux). Yes, he could learn how to solve something in Linux every time a problem arises, but he also has to deliver his projects on time. Because of that, he mostly spends time on his Windows dual boot. Yeah, it sucks ethically and has its own pragmatic issues, but he has never had issues resolving dependencies or hunting down the most recent version that can actually be run in NixOS.
I don’t doubt these will become issues that will not be as problematic in the future, but right now my brother cannot use Linux reliably for his assignments.
Edit: My brother has tried what I use: Fedora and NixOS. He has also tried PopOS.
In Fedora, he found some of his software didn’t exist as .deb, and struggled to make .tar files work smoothly for him.
He tried NixOS afterward. He really liked the whole immutability thing, as well as the idea that apps would have their own dependencies.
His dependency problem happened in PopOS. If I remember correctly, it was a code editor that required a version of something that was different to what a package he used in his software was.
I think the order he tried was Fedora -> NixOS -> PopOS -> NixOS -> ? (Haven’t talked to him about it recently)
If people are here to receive recommendations, I’m preaching to the choir. But responding the question directly, a computer of my own. Being able to go online or work on digital stuff whenever I want to has changed my life for the better.
It seems like you’re passionate about emojis
It actually took me a while to realize he was not wearing the clothes of a McDonald’s worker.
The book Influence by Cialdini not only talks about the levers of influence, but how to minimize their impact.
How about global supply chains for food and clothes? How about the social systems such as healthcare and education? How about infrastructure like the internet or roads? Does each “independent” man do it all on their own?
How about global supply chains for food and clothes? How about the social systems such as healthcare and education? How about infrastructure like the internet or roads? Does each “independent” man do it all on their own?
I love how you put it. I think the particular consequences of not making money quickly enough is pulling the plug in projects. Investors want money, not games.
I think I just exposed how expensive and rare I think kidney-stone treatments are…
Edit: clarity
Oh… I wonder how expensive using that bathtub is. Are they rare? Like, would almost any hospital have one?
Dead Cells! Made by a worker cooperative 🥳