Some weeks ago I gave a talk at AgileDay.it. My talk was about a weird experimental Kanban board, and the Leitmotiv I used was around the differences between Principles and Rules. The topic was: we often learn methodologies mocking rules (often, without getting the point) rather than trying to understand the principles behind them. This bad habit sometimes leads us to take really dumb decisions.
Well, if only I had seen then what I saw today, I would have used in my talk, since I think it would have been the perfect example.
See what I found in a recent production code.
Right now, it hangs on the wall of our open space, for all the developers to see.
Gian Marco Gherardi got the point, and commented it so:
Poor Dan North.
As the father of BDD he understandably commented:
It’s important to understand the principle behind the rule so you know when to violate the rule in order to uphold the principle.