what is agile?

i am new to this world of java. Can you tell me what is agile? and where it is used? (in java or in other languages.)

Agile is a philosophy/process. (It's more of a banner for software process since you can incorporate different bits or lots.) The agile manifesto gives a good overview for what it is all about. As does Wikipedia's agile page, but the wikipedia page is long.

Also, agile isn't related to the language you happen to be programming in. So "java or other languages" is a good way of putting it!

And welcome to CodeRanch!

Hi,
I am also a newbie to this Agile technology. Is Scrum technology related to Agile? Can you please share a related manifesto link for Scrum if its there?

As I understand it (though I haven't actually used it), Scrum isn't a technology. It's a project management framework that is particularly suited to agile development. So yes, they're related.

This seems a pretty good link for learning more about it: http://www.scrumalliance.org/learn_about_scrum

Thanks for sharing that.... A mail from the client states "....we will be adopting Agile Scrum methodology to run our future software development.All team members will have to be trained to understand our approach to scrum...". They have arranged some training next week. Just wanted to knew a bit of the technology beforehand.

Agile Definition from wikipedia is as follows:-

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.

Agile is like bucket which contains many different methodologies like SCRUM, Kanban, Lean...etc

SCRUM is one of agile development methodology for Iterative and incremental development.

IMHO, there is some learning curve while shifting from waterfall( or any other non-agile methodolody) to SCRUM. so please make sure you keep some time for the same.

I hope this helps.

As Jeanne said, 'Agile' isn't related with any particular language. It is a process/methodology on how the 'project' (which may be in java, .net for software engineer or even some construction or mechanical for other industries) is executed/moved ahead. Typically in our case, you first get 'requirements' and it called as 'requirement' phase, then design begins with 'design phase', then development(coding) and finally 'testing'(of the developed/coded product).

Agile is not this typical model, its more dynamic, 'everything' happens bit by bit, you get requirements(may not be the whole of it), you work on it, at the same time there will be testing people who would be preparing for testing(remember the code has not been written/completed yet). So you see all this phases move hand in hand... there are different agile methodologies, scrum is one such.

scrum

John Jai wrote:Thanks for sharing that.... A mail from the client states "....we will be adopting Agile Scrum methodology to run our future software development.All team members will have to be trained to understand our approach to scrum...". They have arranged some training next week. Just wanted to knew a bit of the technology beforehand.

You might be having 'status-calls'/meeting almost every day stating THREE POINTS,

Today I did this.
Tomorrow i will do this'.
I have this 'problem/obstacle' in my work(if any).

This may go for a week/month.

There will be 'retrospective' meeting. It is kind of review of the past.

Deepak and Akhilesh,

Thanks for your insights.