Waterfall vs Agile

This cluster centers on debates about the Waterfall software development methodology, its comparison to Agile, historical misconceptions like it being a strawman, and arguments for its relevance or flaws in practice.

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PHP NG loufranco.com TDD LLM XP COCOMO SLOC wikipedia.org waterfall agile requirements methodology software development project iterative phases process

Sample Comments

the_cat_kittles Aug 15, 2022 View on HN

what are you talking about? the waterfall method is the only way to go

smitty1e Sep 27, 2024 View on HN

"We were not Agile as such; we were talking about a Waterfall as if it were an Agile flow of water molecules."

bluGill Sep 16, 2024 View on HN

Waterfall was named as a strawman. However it is very similar to what a lot of projects do. No project does waterfall as described because there are always things that can't work that way. (some projects get closer to waterfall than others)

legulere Mar 6, 2021 View on HN

But wasn't waterfall always a description of what not to do?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model#History

rajesht Feb 26, 2013 View on HN

thats a waterfall model, may be agile might be more useful :)

taylodl Jul 21, 2023 View on HN

^^^ This here everybody!The much bemoaned waterfall is not a development methodology, it's a project management methodology. The developers had no process at all. That's an important point missed by developers who've never known anything other than agile development. From a developer's perspective it's not agile or waterfall, it's agile or nothing at all (typically). Agile, with its warts and all, is far better than nothing at all.

j45 Mar 1, 2018 View on HN

Waterfall (or waterfall with agile loops) is not bad for known solutions and scopes.Agile is much better when no one has figured out a way to pay people money

midnitewarrior Nov 15, 2025 View on HN

I see rapid, iterative Waterfall.The downfall of Waterfall is that there are too many unproven assumptions in too long of a design cycle. You don't get to find out where you were wrong until testing.If you break a waterfall project into multiple, smaller, iterative Waterfall processes (a sprint-like iteration), and limit the scope of each, you start to realize some of the benefits of Agile while providing a rich context for directing LLM use during development.Comparing this to agi

dom0 May 7, 2017 View on HN

"Waterfall methodology" is the ultimate straw man.

oxfordmale May 10, 2022 View on HN

Waterfall as criticised by Agile followers is mostly a myth. It is a mythical monster designed to instill fear and guide developers along the righteous path of Agile. Of course enlightenment can only be reached with expensive Agile training consultants as you are doomed to fail if you walk alone in the valley of the shadow of project failure.https://loufranco.com/blog/waterfall-is-a