Comments on: Agile Individuals?

By: &nbsp Learning How to Unit Test » GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:00:46 +0000

[...] first wrote about Agile development as a lone indie years ago. I got some good comments, but it still felt like I lacked any real insight into how to [...]

By: &nbsp Test-Driven Game Development » GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:00:47 +0000

[...] sounded cool, but without paired programming, what is a lone indie to do? I had written about Agile individuals years ago, but I lost interest in finding the [...]

By: GBGames

GBGames — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 04:53:09 +0000

Thank you all for your feedback. Test-driven development will likely be a big help, especially early on when things might change and I want to make sure that nothing else gets broken.

It will also help with shorter iterations. Satisfying a test is a lot more focused than adding one more piece of functionality to my entire game.

I have a few things to think about while I am out of town.

By: Jay Barnson

Jay Barnson — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:52:07 +0000

There’s a number of things you can borrow from agile development to use as a lone developer

* Test-Driven Development
* Short Iterations
* Develop quickly and refactor

And there are some parts the lone developer working on his OWN project already has going for him that’s part of some agile methodologies:

* You ARE your own customer, so you can get rapid feedback from yourself
* Undoubtably continuous integration is already taking place.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 16:09:16 +0000

Motivation and discipline are the biggest challenges for a solo developer, for me anyway. I don’t know of any coding methods to make a single programmer produce code faster… How many ways can you manage one cycle of work at a time?

To keep my project moving, I spend some time identifying tasks on a large scale and small scale. I use Backpack to create and organize todo lists. I also use Basecamp since I work with one other person who isn’t a coder, but will be doing content and high-level design. These are very easy to use tools that take no time to set up and use. When starting work on my project, I browse my todo lists, pick a task that can be accomplished in the time I have, and do it. Very light-weight project management tools help me stay focused.

Also, carefully choosing languages, file formats and 3rd party libraries can help. Can you use Python instead of C++? XML data files or binary files? Are there open source libraries that implement functionality that you need? What code can you avoid writing and testing yourself? I’m a big fan of the 3rd party libraries!

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:03:30 +0000

It’s damn hard to produce alone. Not because it’s difficult, but because it’s isolated. There’s nobody to poke you, nobody to give instant feedback, and nobody to impress.

I use Torque 2D (now Torque Game Builder), and I can generally make a prototype in a few hours, depending on the complexity of the game. So it’s certainly not the time it takes that slows me down. I don’t think there needs to be better software for individuals: this stuff works fine.

By: Cynical Stuff » Blog Archive » Rapid Iterations, Scrum and Individual Methodology

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:27:20 +0000

[...] An interesting question was posed in a blog entryÂ which also comments on the article above: are there software development methodologies that are applicable for individuals? At first glance I agree that there aren’t manyÂ thatÂ apply directlyÂ -Â development methods mostlyÂ concentrate on using resources optimally, and that is never really an issue for a one-person project. After all, a single person rarelyÂ finds himself waiting for himself to get done with that bloody document, or for himself to finish coding that damn module that’s needed for the next part. But one thing doesÂ spring to mind: rapid iterations! [...]

By: William Willing

William Willing — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:56:51 +0000

The first time I learned of Extreme Programming was when I was running a software company together with a friend. He introduced me to it and suggested we adopt some of the practices. As you say, pair programming is obviously out, even when you are with two, but there’s quite some other stuff that proved useful. On the technical side, we adopted unit testing. On the business side, we experimented with iterative design and development. Both proved useful. Today I’m a lone wolf again, but I still use much of the same practices I did when we were together. (Although I rarely use unit testing for game development.)

In other words, even though most methodologies won’t work for you without change, you can always adopt the parts that do and create a methodology of your own. In fact, I don’t think it works differently when you’re working in a team. I suspect it’s rare that a team can use a methodology without changing it to fit their situation. Extreme Programming even explicitly states: if a part of the methodology doesn’t work for you, change it.

Extreme programming – and probably other agile methods, too – has more to offer a lone developer than most other methods, because it is intended for smaller development teams to begin with.

One of the great things about being a lone developer is that you have a lot of flexibility. Large development methodologies like SDM, Prince II and – to a lesser extent – Unified Modeling all have a degree of bureaucracy because they need to deal with communication lines within the development team. For some of them, that’s the main problem to solve. As a lone developer, you don’t have that problem at all.