Thanks for the comment.

Note that I didn’t claim that STTCPW is an XP principle. Nor did I claim that STTCPW was anything good or bad, but rather that STTCPW was being presented by some as an excuse for sloppy work. My complaint is not with STsTCPW; I tend to like STsTCPW. My complaint is with the idea being co-opted by the sloppy or the lazy, thus bringing a good idea into disrepute by association. So I would respectfully dispute the idea that I’ve fallen for myths; I’m just disappointed and angered by those who are giving good ideas a bad name. I don’t think they’re straw men; they do exist, and I think they should be criticized fearlessly.

By the way, I’m at Agile 2006 as I write this, and I’m greatly encouraged by the spirit of many of the people I’ve met here. I hasten to note that they’re not the ones I’m talking about in this posting.

First, it’s not one of the XP Principles (which I have listed at Xp Principles), though it related to Assume Simplicity, and perhaps to Small Initial Investment and Concrete Experiments.

Second, the point of the Simplest Thing exhortation is to avoid over-engineering things up front. The term Simplest is not related to Easiest, in this context. It’s not about avoiding boundary cases. It’s not about neglecting resource management. It is about thinking–thinking about what your requirements are today rather than what they might be in the future.

Michael, I think you have fallen for the same myths you deplore. This article would mostly be railing at a strawman, were it not for one brilliant sentence. “The common element between Bad Traditionalist processes and Bad Agile Processes is that both want to remove that irritating thinking part.” That truly is the failing in so many endeavors that go wrong.