Method Wars - NOT!

In the late eighties and early nineties when there was an explosion of different software development methods, there was a tendency for advocates of a particular method to develop arguments in favour of their particular method which went something like:
1. My method is undoubtedly the best (for all problems - an issue that I will come back to).
2. Because my method is the best, all others must be rubbish.
3. Method X (i.e. not mine) is rubbish because........(fill in your personal reasons here).
4. Just to reinforce my argument here is a detailed comparison between my (superior) method and method X.

This led to spurious method wars, with the advocates of a particular method slagging off the competition.

I am not interested in resurrecting any of the above method wars, but to describe my approach in building a system, I need to compare tendencies, rationales and approaches of the two streams. They are not absolutist - both strands of method development have learnt from each other - and neither strand is the definitive source of any one technique. My comparisons are of tendencies.

I am generally going to use Catalysis as the archtype of mainstream methods - because it is probably the most comprehensively documented and consistent method from the mainstream. Equally, the alternative stream will be described by reference to the Shlaer-Mellor method which is the most complete example of the alternative strand. Read More...