What's your experience and opinion about writing besides the code also unit tests (ie. TDD, test-driven development)?
As a contractor I wouldn't think you'd care how many re-writes you did as long as you got paid for every hour you worked.
The whole point & purpose of RE is mainly to let the customer pay every single change request... That's IMO ok & fair, ie. a kind of stupidity-tax... In other industries it is exactly the same.
Not to sure about the 100K lines and 1 programmer, eccks really, although never counted my lines of code on the system I dev, I'd guess not more than 2 - 3 thousand, some down to 100's for a full system. When ever the client draws up what they want, always ends up being a rewrite, you have to really push them the right way and make them think it's there idea, unless I'm being paid by the hour, which I generally am ofcourse!!
Agreed, but after this "episode", I was soon let-go....and of course, the dumb chick is still collecting a fine pay check. The whole arena of IT is just so screwed up.....thanks to all of the cheap foreign labor.
But she is/was not your manager, or was she? I mean, you have/had to be a little diplomatic and act strategically. Ie. talk to your manager...
Agreed, but after this "episode", I was soon let-go....and of course, the dumb chick is still collecting a fine pay check. The whole arena of IT is just so screwed up.....thanks to all of the cheap foreign labor. I don't know if she was my manager or not....this place was hugely political. The CTO was an Indian. The CIO was an Indian. This chick was Chinese. No room for Americans in this business any longer. The IT Director was a really nice guy (an American), but he couldn't wait to leave this place.
Agile and Scrum (one variation of an agile methodology) definitely have their place and can increase productivity. Unfortunately, too many times they are applied by ignorant people, who bought into hype but do not really understand agile methodology and do not have the right mindset, or simply prefer to get stuck using outdated waterfall models. In order for Scrum to be used effectively - a number of criteria has to be met. For example, will work well for relatively small teams, up to 7-10 developers, with a leader who has the right mindset, and the skills to setup the process correctly and teach and guide the team. I can see why the reason a methodology like this would fail in many larger companies and especially in financial institutions most of which operate as if they were stuck back in the 1990's.. with outdated processes and antiquated management.. This is one big reason I would never go back to working for a traditional Wall Street/ financial services company after working in Silicon Valley and modern high-tech startups..