RE: [AM] Plato on Documentation

From: Scott Ambler [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 11:36 AM
> 
> Plato once said "...anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and
> likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be
> clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded...". Thoughts?

Yeah. He didn't have to support his writings in an enterprise production
environment with standards compliance, legal ramifications, employee
turnover, etc! :)

Joking aside, does being skeptical of the usefulness of a document before
reading it preclude the fact that a clear and certain one can be written? 

The emphasis that any given agile methodology puts on "people over process"
(and that certain agilists take to a cowboy extreme) is in fact a two-edged
sword. While I generally approve of that concept in its idealized form, the
fact is that the world is full of incompetent processes *AND* people. The
idea that all of one is any better than all of another is what is
"exceedingly simple-minded".

Sometimes we get so into debating A vs. B, that we overlook A+B or A*B.

_________________________________
Paul Tiseo, Systems Programmer
Research Computing Facility
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, Griffin 371
[email protected]
   

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> - Scott
> 
> ====================================================
> Scott W. Ambler
> Senior Consultant, Ronin International, Inc.
> www.ronin-intl.com/company/scottAmbler.html
> 
> www.agiledata.org
> www.agilemodeling.com
> www.ambysoft.com
> www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.info
> www.modelingstyle.info
> www.ronin-intl.com
> 
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> 

For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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