They All Say They're Agile Until You Work There

Oh look, it's Sun Tzu's lesser-known chapter on software development! Nothing says "I'm a 10x developer" quite like attributing your laziness to ancient Chinese military strategy. This is the battle cry of every developer who's about to unleash pure chaos into production. "Focus on building, not on tests and docs" is just fancy talk for "I'll let future me (or some poor soul who inherits my code) deal with this dumpster fire." The irony of using a military strategist who meticulously planned everything to justify skipping documentation is just *chef's kiss*. Next up: "The database will figure itself out" - Albert Einstein, probably.

Oh, the eternal job security of dealing with clients who say they want a "simple website" but actually mean "Facebook but better" with a budget of $200. The AI apocalypse might be coming for some jobs, but programmers can sleep soundly knowing that no robot will ever decipher "make it pop" or "I'll know what I want when I see it." Our superpower isn't coding—it's somehow building functional software from requirements that change faster than JavaScript frameworks.

Ten people standing around watching one developer dig a hole. Classic enterprise development in its natural habitat. The lone coder does all the actual work while a small army of managers, architects, and stakeholders provide their essential service of... standing there. Adding another solutions architect would definitely fix that sprint backlog. Maybe they can architect a solution for how to hold a shovel.

Ah, the classic "we just found a bug in something you built during the Obama administration" scenario. That forced smile hides the internal screaming of every developer who's had to dive back into ancient code they don't even remember writing. The best part? The feature probably worked perfectly for 4 years until someone decided to use it in a way that defies all logic and reason. Now you get to archaeologically excavate your own code while the client watches with that "we're paying you a lot of money" expression. Time to dust off the old commit history and figure out what past-you was thinking... if you even documented it. Spoiler alert: you didn't.

Oh the sweet innocent joy of thinking your code is ready for production! First panel: you're all confident, "This ticket is done, git push" - what could possibly go wrong? Second panel: QA has entered the chat and suddenly your masterpiece isn't looking so masterful. But the REAL horror story? That third panel when DevOps slides into your DMs like the final boss of a roguelike game you weren't prepared to play. The three stages of developer grief: confidence, concern, and existential dread. Ship it anyway!

This cosmic roast of development methodologies is painfully accurate. Waterfall gets you to Mars after a rigid plan, while Agile lands you on the Moon instead because requirements changed mid-flight. Kanban? You'll break down the Mars mission into thousands of sticky notes and still be waiting for armrests a year later. Scrum is just a series of sprints that end with scrapping everything after a 15-minute meeting. And Lean Development? Just slap wings on a firecracker and try convincing investors it's basically a spaceship. The space between our development ambitions and reality is apparently as vast as the distance to Mars itself.