Editing Agile software development (section)

=== Code vs. documentation ===
In a letter to ''[[Computer (magazine)|IEEE Computer]]'', Steven Rakitin expressed cynicism about agile software development, calling it "''yet another attempt to undermine the discipline of software engineering''" and translating "''working software over comprehensive documentation''" as "''we want to spend all our time coding. Remember, real programmers don't write documentation''."<ref name="rakitin2001">{{Cite journal| last=Rakitin| first=Steven R.| title= Manifesto Elicits Cynicism: Reader's letter to the editor by Steven R. Rakitin|journal=IEEE Computer| volume=34| number=12 | doi = 10.1109/MC.2001.10095 | year=2001| page=4| s2cid=221106984|quote=The article titled 'Agile Software Development: The Business of Innovation' ... is yet another attempt to undermine the discipline of software engineering ... We want to spend all our time coding. Remember, real programmers don't write documentation.}}</ref>

This is disputed by proponents of agile software development, who state that developers should write documentation if that is the best way to achieve the relevant goals, but that there are often better ways to achieve those goals than writing static documentation.<ref name="agiledoc">{{cite web|url=http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm|author=Scott Ambler|title=Agile/Lean Documentation: Strategies for Agile Software Development|date=16 April 2023 }}</ref>
[[Scott Ambler]] states that documentation should be "just barely good enough" (JBGE),<ref>{{cite web|author=Scott Ambler|url=http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/barelyGoodEnough.html|title=Just Barely Good Enough Models and Documents: An Agile Best Practice|access-date=24 January 2014|archive-date=8 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008163437/http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/barelyGoodEnough.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> that too much or comprehensive documentation would usually cause waste, and developers rarely trust detailed documentation because it's usually out of sync with code,<ref name="agiledoc"/> while too little documentation may also cause problems for maintenance, communication, learning and knowledge sharing. [[Alistair Cockburn]] wrote of the ''Crystal Clear'' method: 
{{Blockquote|text=Crystal considers development a series of co-operative games, and intends that the documentation is enough to help the next win at the next game. The work products for Crystal include use cases, risk list, iteration plan, core domain models, and design notes to inform on choices...however there are no templates for these documents and descriptions are necessarily vague, but the objective is clear, '''just enough documentation''' for the next game. I always tend to characterize this to my team as: what would you want to know if you joined the team tomorrow.|sign=Alistair Cockburn<ref>{{cite web|author=Geoffrey Wiseman|date=18 July 2007|title=Do Agile Methods Require Documentation?|url=http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/07/agile-methods-documentation|publisher=InfoQ}} quoting {{cite web |last=Cooper |first=Ian |date=6 July 2007 |url=https://ianhammondcooper.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/agile-and-documentation/ |title=Staccato Signals:Agile and Documentation|work=WordPress.com}}</ref>}}