It was not a straw man. I've seen it specified in contracts. I've seen audit teams sent in to verify an SDLC (system development life cycle). Arthur Andersen (now Andersen consulting) had it formalized in their "Method 1" system development approach.
Any semblance of agile was met with hostility. You were labeled a "cowboy programmer" or "hobbyist programmer" if you dared start with code instead of specification and approved plan.
Also, it is easy to forget those "rules" weren't wrong. People were coding in non-agile languages. Version control tools had strict checkout and locking. Project communication was in the form of rows of three ring binders -- everytime you added or changed a function, you marked up the existing doc page and a secretary retyped it with carbon paper (for a subject book, title book, and subsystem book).
Changed to requirements were very expensive, so the whole system was designed to get full buy in a once. Consider that even now in this "age of enlightenment", we take a waterfall approach in nonsoftware projects simply because changes are expensive. If you're having a custom home built, you need to make a lot of decisions early. You're charged heavily if you want to change the spec during construction.
Any semblance of agile was met with hostility. You were labeled a "cowboy programmer" or "hobbyist programmer" if you dared start with code instead of specification and approved plan.
Also, it is easy to forget those "rules" weren't wrong. People were coding in non-agile languages. Version control tools had strict checkout and locking. Project communication was in the form of rows of three ring binders -- everytime you added or changed a function, you marked up the existing doc page and a secretary retyped it with carbon paper (for a subject book, title book, and subsystem book).
Changed to requirements were very expensive, so the whole system was designed to get full buy in a once. Consider that even now in this "age of enlightenment", we take a waterfall approach in nonsoftware projects simply because changes are expensive. If you're having a custom home built, you need to make a lot of decisions early. You're charged heavily if you want to change the spec during construction.