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I've spent 31 years working in the software industry, I've seen so many approaches and methods and with each one we have frantically ran after each as though it were the silver bullet. There isn't one and don't let anyone fool you into thinking there is!!! But I recently ran some Unit testing and TDD training and was stunned by he questions that were being asked. It lead me to question the direction in which the software industry is heading.

Before I rant like a crazy man let me qualify my journey to where I am today.

• Mid 80s developing medical systems in assembly on CP/M machines, no real structured approach, but definitely incremental development
• Mid towards 80s developing medical systems in dBase II+ and Clipper, no real structured approach, but definitely incremental development
• Late 80s developing medical systems in dBase II+ and C++, a waterfall approach, but definitely incremental development - a forward thinking company
• Just heading into 90s developing medical systems in C/C++, a formal waterfall approach was being applied and it was not incremental, get it right once and no looking back (not a good experience). It was also during this time that I came across Object Modelling Technique by James Rumbaugh et al, this is the point where my whole approach to software development changed. I realised that you create good software by doing some upfront design. Now I know a few of you out there are thinking "yeah I do that but I just don't write it down." And that's where the problem is, you don't write/capture what's going on in that crazy mind of yours. I suddenly realised that if I could capture what I was thinking in a consistent, agreed and proven way, then the next time I need to come back to the same problem I wouldn't have to spend hours or days trying to figure out what my code was doing and what the heck the problem was that I was trying to solve in the first place (sorry ranting....). Remember - we didn't have the version control systems that we have today and neither did have the test techniques that we apply today.
• Early 90s developing communications software in C++/VB, used several languages for designing - OMT, Booch, Shlear Mellor, Syntropy
• Just prior to the mid 90s developing distributed object systems using CORBA in C++ with some Java starting to stream through, OMT the dominant design language, iterative life-cycles became the norm (the fountain approach)
• Mid 90s, UML and Java beginning to replace OMT and C++ as the dominant design and programming language respectively. So for about 4 years worked primarily on projects suing these Java and UML.
• Just after mid 90s world goes crazy and we're in the throngs of analysis paralysis. Basically it's a waterfall approach being applied to OO techniques. It ain't working. We have teams of analysts creating mountains of documents that have no correlation to the software being developed. Software developers think analysts are idiots and analysts think software developers should stay in their caves. It was an interesting time to be a software developer and designer.
• Late 90s the emergence of XP and whole family of other OO styled techniques trying to solve the problem of analysis paralysis. But most of the techniques come into view for a while then we fall right back into that waterfall cycle. I worked as technical architect in the rail and tube industry, architecting and designing many of the systems for London's TFL Oyster Card.
• Early 2000s, technical architect for a major upgrade of London's TFL Victoria Line. A none OO project but clearly defining the architecture and design of the components upfront was crucial to it's success.
• 2005 for about two years, an advisor to the UK NATS on the architecture and suitability of technology and architecture for a proposed solution to a very important infrastucture project.
• Since 2007 I have been an architect, consultant, advisor and software developer (C++, Java and C#) on numerous projects.
• So what I'm about to write I do so from a reference point of immense experience.