Friday, September 02, 2005

Use your wings

Or, “And the birds walked home” Once there were birds who did not know how to fly. One day a bird was starting a fire in his fireplace and flapped his wings to get it started. He rose into the air. He was amazed. After practicing a bit, he was soaring above the rooftops. He gathered his friends around and told them how amazing it was to fly. He talked about how beautiful the clouds were up close and shining in the sun. Everyone was excited about this and talked to each other about this new discovery. Then they all walked home. (Author unknown, paraphrased 8/17/2005) I am feeling this way about the things I read about at https://agilemanifesto.org,  http://www.cooper.com, http://www.extremeprogramming.org/index.html and http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?XpFaq . They seem incredible. They ring true about how to build better software. After I am done reading, I feel like walking home. It is so easy to do things as we have always have done them. We have deadlines. I know there are better ways to develop software.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do I find the orignal version of this story?

Thane

tmccready@socal.rr.com

Richard Alger said...

I do not know where this story came from. I just remember someone telling me a version of it. I would also like to know the source.