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Widespread use is predicted, but some IT shops are wary
MORE THAN two-- thirds of all co corporate IT organizations will use some form of "agile" software development process within the next 18 months, Giga Information Group Inc. predicted last week at its application development conference here.
But so far, only a small percentage of corporations have latched on to any of the various emerging lightweight programming methodologies -- such as Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum and Crystal -- which gurus grouped under the umbrella term agile about a year ago.
Corporate users attending last week's conference generally showed interest in checking out only specific elements of agile approaches, which aim to help them attack projects that have unclear or rapidly changing requirements.
For instance, one of the more controversial elements of XP - pairing two programmers at a single workstation - appeals to Jeff Allen, a senior business analyst at the Riverview, Fla.-- based fertilizer division of Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc. Allen said his group is switching from Microsoft Corp. development technologies to Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java and that he can envision benefits to teaming a senior programmer with a junior one.
Wait Smith, chief architect at a large U.S.-based financial institution, said the need to produce higher-quality software more quickly will drive his firm to consider some agile approaches. "Customers want applications in 90 days now, no matter how complex they are, and you can't do that with traditional methods," he said.
Agile methodologies...