Thoughts on agile software development

This week we were given an assignment in class to read the wikipedia article concerning "agile software development". This methodology was "patented" or concretely nailed down in February of 2001 by 17 software developers who met do create what is known as the "Manifesto for agile software development", in which they nailed down the requirements that they deemed necessary for a development cycle to be deemed "agile". Here is an excerpt from the manifesto "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan. That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more." While this methodology sounds good in theory, I feel that it provides some potential problems when we start analyzing it more critically. Particularly, I feel that their stance on "working software over comprehensive documentation", while it sounds good in theory, I feel that when you take the stance that you don't "need" to have everything documented in its entirety as long as it works, you set up a situation in which you have a high probability of beginning the process of digging your own grave. What I mean is that when you forgo good documentation practices and opt for more coding, what ends up happening is that when someone else needs to use something that you wrote, they will have no idea what is going on and the time that they have to spend figuring out your code may very well end up taking more time than if you had just documented correctly in the first place. Therefore, I believe that this method, while it is good in moderation, I believe that you need to take a more moderate approach to software development that way your code ends up coming out with less bugs and more documentation, that way you have the framework for future development.