[Nmh-workers] Re: Questionable code - the bigger picture

[Will Partain]

"Jeffrey C Honig" <address@hidden> writes:

> Hmmm, why don't we treat this as a software project and:
>
>       1) Do requirements gathering
>       2) Come up with work estimates
>       3) Figure out when we want to release
>       [...]
>       8) Release
>       9) Lather, rinse, repeat

A lighter-touch "agile" approach -- I'm thinking Scrum -- might also
do.  It proceeds in bite-sized chunks, which might suit the nmh world.

Requirements gathering turns into building/adding-to a "backlog" of
items that could do with being done.  This would include items like
"document <foo>" and/or "release the <wibble> branch".

The tricky part is who gets to be the "customer", who gets to set the
priorities on backlog items and (ultimately) pick the top ones, to be
broken into tasks, to be done.  The nice thing: even if you have a
long backlog, all you need to know for right now are the top ten (or
so) items, and their relative importance.  It can change next week.

The agile guys would say you can't proceed this way effectively
without getting testing under control.  Might merit some thought.

Will