While observing various projects, memes, and stories about software development in different companies — and knowing that some of those stories were probably exaggerated or outright untrue — I decided to reconstruct a certain case study that could be described as “cargo cult software development.” To clarify: I’m talking about situations where programming and testing approaches are followed without understanding their actual purpose, like a tribe building a runway out of sticks in the hope that a plane will land. Any resemblance to real companies is purely coincidental. (more…)