Rhetoric in IT

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/12/06.html

I loathe rhetoric, it all ends up so black and white, them and us.

> The trouble with MSF is that it starts with a group of successful developers, who
> are successful because they are resourceful, intelligent, experienced, well-
> meaning, and have plush private offices with doors that close, and then
> attempts to claim that if impose some of their "best practices" on your team of
> unskilled developers, you will achieve the same results. It's like Daniel Boulud
> selling a manual to McDonald's fry cooks. "Out of potatoes? Try Yams. Throw in
> a bit of rosemary. Toss and serve with a lime-basil aioli dipping sauce. Yum."
>It's just Best Practices, right?

I find little to substantiate the claim that MSF says the practices will allow a team of unskilled developers to deliver the same results as successful developers. It maybe that some people, seeing IT and people as a commodity, infer that a process can be applied to a production system irrespective of the people. However, I don't believe that MSF provides the data to support that view.

I would prefer critiques on method in general and in specifics to distinguish between:
a) What was intended and the context it was intended to be applied in.
b) How they are used.
c) The problems in the statements about a) that lead to problematic b)s.