Fear Of Change

Fear change. Change is retreat. Change is an admission of guilt. Change is indecision.

Ride the waterfall. Take your project. Analyse it, design it, implement it, test it, fix it, change it, almost test it again, deliver it. Take the support calls.

Request a change. Chain it in paper and process and professional prose. Ambiguous, contradictory, laborious language larded with jargon. Give a bloody estimate.

Pick a number, any number. Lie your flipping tongue out. Tell 'em it's crap. They don't flipping care and slash just your quote in two.

Slave away at your miserable job, marching away for the mistakes of management. Find out that the customer doesn't want it. Tough. It's been signed off. Hate those words. Rage at the fscked up fools.

Complain and get told it's the way it's done. You're just a programmer who needs to face certain business realities. Embrace legalism and arguing about whether it's supposed to be a button or a flipping hyperlink.

Blame your teachers. Blame UML. Blame lack of flipping Z-specs. Become an academic. Preach personal software process to apathetic students. Teach Eiffel and Haskell and cower behind your desk every time your hear a knock. Demand change requests before you give a flipping extension.

This text originally found at http://advogato.org/person/jml/diary.html?start=1. Be warned, it uses much coarser language. The author is somewhat proud of the original, but would never again write something as harsh or as foul. Further, he somewhat resents the bowdlerised version that appears above.

I can see this is related to EmbraceChange, but the point of it is lost on me. Is it a parody for its own sake? Is it a rant about those who claim to EmbraceChange but don't?

No, this is a rant about the traditional, prevailing model of software development: the Waterfall model. The people who use this model make no claim about embracing change -- or fearing it -- instead, they would say that they "manage change". -- JonathanLange

Oh dear, FearChange? becomes FearOfChange. Is CategoryFearOf? far behind?

See also ChangeManagement