No Size Fits All

The most recent episode of CppCast featuring David Sankel ends with a good reminder:

There is no One Software Methodology to Rule Them All, because we work in different contexts.

Your environment matters. If you’re a startup whose principle threat is obscurity, “move fast and break things” is good advice. If you’re an avionics developer, not so much.

When you push your way of doing things—even when it works really well for you!—as a universal panacea, something everyone everywhere should adopt, you’re missing the fact that it works in a particular set of circumstances… a particular time, with a particular team, with a particular set of goals, on a codebase with a particular history.