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IBM Donates Parts of Rational to Open Source
slashbob22 writes "IBM has decided to contribute portions of the Rational Unified Process to the Eclipse Foundation. From the article: 'RUP is a vast collection of methods and best practices for promoting quality and efficiency throughout software development projects. IBM's donation will also provide a foundation architecture and Web-based tools for the industry to engineer, collaborate on, share and reuse software development best practices.'"
People try to make RUP into more than it is. The idea is to take and leave what works for your organization, and build a loose process around it. It's a framework for generating your own applicable process, and all too often companies want to do everything that RUP tells them to do (ignorning the fact that RUP tells you not to do everything..)
What really needs to be taken from RUP is the idea that an iterative approach reduces risk of failure. The concept of "roles" is helpful, but thats just basic teamwork.
First, I have personally used the RUP successfully. The success was in spite of the process, not because of it. The excellent people I had on my team made the work a success, and not a paperwork-on-rails approach to software development.
On the upside, the RUP is geared toward control of iterative projects. On the downside, it treats every diagram you draw as though it were as valuable as the working software you really intend to produce. It also adds artificial divisions between roles in the process (the architect sends X to the analyst who elaborates it and sends it on to the developer who extrudes Y...). It tends to reduce communication among team members, and between team members and stakeholders. It's original intent seems to have been to give all the diagrams in the UML a reason for being (and by extension, Rose).
Show me a failing unit test and I'll show you a low-level design awaiting implementation. Running code trumps "managed artifacts" any day.