How to handle technological "Dogmatism"

Question

I left a job (to relocate to another country) where I programmed in Javascript and Haskell (some python) most of the time. I really liked it because people were objective, positive, mathematical, and yet got a bunch of stuff done. This was a truly professional shop.

Now I work at an Agile/XP shop. While this is good and all I feel that maybe we are unprofessional when it comes to the selection of technologies and libraries. I feel that our approach to writing software is a bit immature and unstructured. I am trying to read the books I have been offered and they seem to encourage this style (ugh). A lot of times we just pick libs off of git hub and use it without any type of review.

I get forced to work with someone all the time even if it's a small task for one person. There seems to be a little "fast" rule for everything even if the rule can be broken by a trivial counter example (one time I made the mistake of giving that counter example and I was verbally attacked). Is this normal here in the states? How do I handle this dogmatism?

Answer 1

Don't generalize.

It's obvious that your current shop is one of those misguided ones which think they are doing Agile - but they're not - and are going to end up with an unmanageable codebase. "Pulling code off github without review", "verbally attacked", "forced to work with someone" are all danger signals. Of course, you might be magnifying things a bit because of the culture shock, but maybe you should look for a new place to work at.

Answer 2

You certainly cannot judge an entire culture according to the workings of a single development shop. Your shop is your shop. There are probably many like it. Many that are "worse" and many that may be "better". If you're not comfortable with the fit, move on. The dogma seems quite serious and it's doubtful that you can change it or adjust to it. Still, give Joel's Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt a read. You might find some useful survival strategies.