What nonsense. Moving the storage task to the phone companies does absolutely nothing to make the collection less nasty. Enacting the "reform" is, at best, no different than just renewing the Patriot Act as it is. But that's "at best". In reality, it's even worse, as requiring the telecoms to keep this data guarantees that the telecoms will use that data -- so the end result is an expansion of the the amount of spying that is being inflicted on us.

No, it doesn't. It is required for all gas cars that live in the greater Portland and Medford metropolitan areas, but is not required anywhere else in the state.

Yes, but that's in exchange for the massive privacy invasion that results from using toll transponders and/or license plate readers. I don't see that as an improvement at all. It's just the opposite.

Good god, no.

Toll roads are the purest of evils. We need much less of them, not much more. A better solution is to fund road maintenance out of the general fund. Everyone benefits greatly from well-maintained roads, after all, even if they never drive at all.

Of course I know (and agree) with this. However, when (as has been my experience) agile actively makes developers unhappy in addition to reducing productivity, the product will inevitably suffer.

My experience (both as a PM and developer) has been that Agile projects tend to take longer to produce a worse product.

True, but all of that has little to do with Agile specifically.

None of those are failings of waterfall at all. There is nothing about waterfall that requires you to make ironclad decisions at the very start, and there is nothing that prevents you from adapting the course of development as the project proceeds.

In other words, you aren't describing waterfall in your comment. Yes, I'm invoking the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, since that is usually what is invoked when Agile is criticized.

The real truth is that all methodologies can be done well or poorly, including waterfall and agile. The difference that I've seen in practice is that it's incredibly hard to implement Agile correctly (such that I've never seen it done), but implementing waterfall correctly is not a huge chore.

I'll split down the middle of this. In the agile shops I've worked in, there has been a consistent strong aversion to producing documentation that is actually useful: design specs, etc. However, there has also been a consistent trend to dramatically increase the amount of worthless documentation: documenting the process itself (encouraged by tools like Version One).

I agree with your underlying point, that if the team consists of just one or two developers, then process becomes less important (but still important). However, if the team consists of 50 developers, that's a serious problem all by itself, no matter what process is in use.

This can't be overstated. A great process is a process that is nearly invisible to developers, allowing us to get on with the development with minimal friction. Agile presents a great deal of friction. It is a process apparently designed to please middle management at the expense of developers.

No matter how long or short they are, standups are worthless (except, I suppose, if the team is dysfunctional to begin with). In a well functioning team, everything that is supposed to be accomplished in a standup is accomplished in real-time as it happens. So there's nothing new to be said in the stand up.

In my experience, that would be greatly preferable to Agile.

My experience is just the opposite: agile is very nearly the worst of the methodologies I've used. The one great thing about it is something that can be done in any methodology: increased communications. We can throw out the bathwater and keep that baby.

Agile started failing pretty much as soon as it met the real world. I disagree with Andy Hunt's explanation of why, though. It's not because "thinking is hard", it's mostly because of two things: management not allowing agile to be done correctly, and (from the developer's point of view) it drains software engineering of the things that make it a satisfying and enjoyable activity, turning it into the software equivalent of grunt factory work.

There's nothing antiquated about anonymous ballots. Voting secrecy is as critical now as it has ever been, for all of the same reasons: to minimize reprisals from friends, family, employers, and the government for voting "the wrong way", and to decrease the ease with which people can be coerced or bribed to vote a particular way (since the ones doing the bribing or coercing can't verify that you voted the way they want.)

Me either. But those privacy concerns you mention are such a huge deal that I try very hard to never send email to a gmail address. And when I have to send email to one, I say as little as I can possibly get away with.

I don't believe there exists any place in the nation where your only choice for internet service is AOL. There are many other dialup providers that are a local phone call from pretty much everywhere.