Hi,
Agile development is a very useful methodology. Is it realistic to apply this to a lone developer who codes as a hobby (I also code for a living in a team where I have learnt agile from)? Things like stories, scheduled retrospectives, etc, can be useful (Even if I am asking myself things)?
Thanks
Certainly, though some of the practices may not apply or may feel a bit silly.
Breaking your work into stories and timeboxing your development can definitely help even if your all alone.
Test-Driven-Development is really an individual process anyway, and certainly is useful as a solo developer.
Pair-programming would require schizophrenia however. Daily standup meetings would probably go much more quickly...
There was some talk of this on Ward's Wiki years ago, which might be worth a look.
Yes, Agile is a lot about Getting Things Done (the real meaning, not the book, see below). It's about getting trough procrastination too. I've found that Agile methodologies tend to solve mostly psychological problems. In fact, most problems we encounter in software development are not technical, but psychological.
I have many projects where I'm the only one involved, and yet I've my own backlog, sprint backlog, my own information radiator, I apply the same "done" definition rules, reviews, retrospectives, ...
But no, I'm not doing standups meeting alone or with my cat :)
I've read many books about productivity improvements before I discovered agile methodologies. And what I've observed is that agile is very similar to them.
For exemple, Scrum is a lot about Getting Things Done, and others well known books on the subject.
That book certainly saved my life at a certain point. So get it and read it. It will helps you "get it", I mean, understanding what Agile means. Trying to do Agile not understanding it will leads you to failure.
Is it realistic to apply this to a lone developer who codes as a hobby (I also code for a living in a team where I have learnt agile from)? Things like stories, scheduled retrospectives, etc, can be useful (Even if I am asking myself things)?
Definitely yes and it worked for me. I have tried doing it myself and it definitely makes me more productive. A good way to try it without the need of buying a whole lot of office supplies is using ScrumWorks (google danube) which is freeware for the basic version. You can add products, releases, user stories. tasks, and see burn down charts etc.
Doing a retrospective by yourself would be a little weird and it may make people in your house think you are losing your marbles while you talk to yourself out loud but that is just my opinion. What I do is I write down the Retrospective notes on a soft document and attach it to the Sprint or a Backlog in ScrumWorks.
Hoping this will help you.