I'm not sure that developers dislike those they work with so much as they dislike being managed - the fun part of the job is exploratory programming and chasing technical curiosities. Having a manager and customers means we actually have to create something that works and generally includes more "drudge work".
If developers dislike agile, you'd expect them to be happy with BDUF (waterfall) and I never hear people saying they're happy with book-sized specification documents.
Isn't this really the difference between computer science and software engineering? As developers we have to straddle the fence.
Software developers are human beings. This seems like a "duh" moment until you realize that we routinely ignore this basic fact. As human beings, we operate best when we feel like we're doing something important or valuable. If we are tasked with something that is neither, then it is up to the person that is assigning the task to acknowledge the situation and make it be known that "taking one for the company" won't go unnoticed. There are also additional compensation options that could be used to make the whole situation more tolerable. Something along the lines of "Bill spent two weeks documenting that entire area of the product that everyone is so wary of altering, so he's earned that extra 3 days of vacation".
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I agree with everything you're saying. However, I do think that good managers that understand their developers can make things work and keep everyone happy.
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I'm not sure that developers dislike those they work with so much as they dislike being managed - the fun part of the job is exploratory programming and chasing technical curiosities. Having a manager and customers means we actually have to create something that works and generally includes more "drudge work".
If developers dislike agile, you'd expect them to be happy with BDUF (waterfall) and I never hear people saying they're happy with book-sized specification documents.
Isn't this really the difference between computer science and software engineering? As developers we have to straddle the fence.
Software developers are human beings. This seems like a "duh" moment until you realize that we routinely ignore this basic fact. As human beings, we operate best when we feel like we're doing something important or valuable. If we are tasked with something that is neither, then it is up to the person that is assigning the task to acknowledge the situation and make it be known that "taking one for the company" won't go unnoticed. There are also additional compensation options that could be used to make the whole situation more tolerable. Something along the lines of "Bill spent two weeks documenting that entire area of the product that everyone is so wary of altering, so he's earned that extra 3 days of vacation".
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I agree with everything you're saying. However, I do think that good managers that understand their developers can make things work and keep everyone happy.