Waterfall Analogy

I have an idea that needs some better heads than mine having a think about it. Like all the best visions, it came to me in a dream :-)

XP has taught me that the WaterfallModel is not:

 Design
   |
   V
 Code
   |
   V
 Test

but

 Test
   |
   V
 Code
   |
   V
 Design

This means that, from my point of view, developers using "traditional" methods, are in fact fighting their way up the waterfall (like Salmon swimming upstream) while those doing XP coast down it.

Of course, extending the analogy, "traditional" methods involve one big waterfall and XP has many small ones.

Is this an analogy that holds up ? Or is it the product of the fevered dreams of my diseased imagination ?

Thoughts ?

--AlanFrancis

This spring I tried to tell news:comp.object exactly that. They resisted bitterly, but I was able to hold them all off, single-handedly, using only thought experiments and appeals to common sense. Since then, EdwardBerard labelled me one of the idiots who have conducted a "hostile takeover" of the newsgroup, and drowned out all the conversations he likes.

He likes conversations discussing the outer limits of OO-style complexities. The kind of complexities that a good TestDrivenDesign session usually eliminates instead of coddles. >sigh< --PhlIp

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Have a look at the process sequences and discussions in WaterfallModel.

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Be careful, because writing tests and testing (executing them) are not the same. Is that on the point?

I remember Ward saying "Test-first programming is not a testing technique"