Analysing methodologies
15th November 2003
Joel Spolsky on analysing development methodologies:
But we don’t have the data. We don’t have any data. You can give us anecdotes left and right about how methodology X worked or didn’t work, but you can’t prove that when it worked it wasn’t just because of one really, really good programmer on the team, and you can’t prove that when it failed is wasn’t just because the company was in the process of going bankrupt and everybody was too demoralized to do anything at all, Aeron chairs notwithstanding.
More recent articles
- I vibe coded my dream macOS presentation app - 25th February 2026
- Writing about Agentic Engineering Patterns - 23rd February 2026
- Adding TILs, releases, museums, tools and research to my blog - 20th February 2026