Talk:Methodology (software engineering)

This page seems to overlap significantly with software development process. Is it possible to clarify which ideas belong on each page?

A methodology does not have anything to do with software, necessarily. A SDP is perhaps part of a M and also a M could be part of a SDP. Not the same M. It must be possible to do as you say. First step would be to have a very good definition of what each is. Paul Beardsell 02:24, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Uff, this needs a HUGE clean up!
I'm not an expert in these matters, but I see a lot of confusion here... Saying that Structured Programming or OOP are Software Methodologies, as it says in the final listing, is absolutely wrong: they are Programming Paradigms.

Indeed, I believe that nearly in every place of this article, where it says "Methodology", it should say "Process". As a matter of fact, nor CMM nor ISO 9000 are (thick) methodologies. They are principles and practices to asses and improve Software Process and QA, respectively. Try to find the word "Methodology" in the CMM documentation. How many times does it appear? NONE. Because it's not a methodology: CMM defines which are the KPA (Key Process Areas) that every Software Process should take into account, and then categorizes the Process into five levels, depending on how many PKAs have you implemented all along your Software Process. It also gives out some Key Practices in order to achieve the mentioned KPAs. But it doesn't tell you HOW to implement those Key Practices, and each business will do it in its own way. And that very own way, is the METHODOLOGY: the method, the procedures by which you make something.

Still doesn't believe CMM is NOT a Methodology? Take a read at its introduction:

"After two decades of unfulfilled promises about productivity and quality gains from applying new software methodologies and technologies, industry and government organizations are realizing that their fundamental problem is the inability to manage the software process"

And the rest of the CMM spec explains how to correctly manage the process.

Unfortunately, I'm not so experienced as to correct or make a good article of this mess, but I'm not blind and can see that this is totally messed up. Please, someone with time and knowledge make something good out of this.

This article is feeble
Even in its starting lines mix methodology and method, what should be avoided in the Encyclopedia, or at least discussed.

It need a major overhaul.

Make it short
In current usage the term is so ambiguous that I think trying to pin it down is going to be problematic if not impossible. My recommendation would be to keep the article as general and as short as possible. Detailed discussion is rather pointless if there isn't agreement on what the word means. Plus, most of what is here is already addressed elsewhere, so link to those articles. Address the sematical problems right off the bat, linking to the Methodology article rather than discussing the definition of the term in this article, and tossing the Criticism section altogether. Leave the Examples section in because those are useful links to anyone exploring this subject; but acknowledge that there may be dispute as to whether these all constitute genuine "methodologies" but that a significant number of people would consider them so. Limbo socrates 16:36, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we agree on what a methodology is?
Like pornography, maybe we can't easily define methodology, but we probably know one when we see one.

For example...

I would say RUP (Rational Unified Process) is a methodology, based on the object-oriented design and programming paradigm.

I would say Extreme Programming and Scrum are methodologies, based on the Agile programming paradigm.

Do you agree with this level of classification? Or am I off the mark? - Rlw (Talk) 17:39, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

This must merge with Software Development Process
This article is redundant with the Software development process article, and should be merged. If there is no dispute on this point, you can help by migrating useful information from this article. Limbo socrates 19:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)