Is Design Dead?

For many that come briefly into contact with Extreme Programming, it seems that XP calls for the death of software design. Not just is much design activity ridiculed as "Big Up Front Design", but such design techniques as the UML, flexible frameworks, and even patterns are de-emphasized or downright ignored. In fact XP involves a lot of design, but does it in a different way than established software processes. XP has rejuvenated the notion of evolutionary design with practices that allow evolution to become a viable design strategy. It also provides new challenges and skills as designers need to learn how to do a simple design, how to use refactoring to keep a design clean, and how to use patterns in an evolutionary style.

May 2004

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The XP 2000 Conference

with Jack Bolles

In late June over a hundred people gathered on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia to take part in the XP2000 conference to discuss Extreme Programming (XP) and other flexible methodologies.

July 2000

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Variations on a Theme of XP

One of the attractive things about XP is that it gives quite definite statements about what you should do to be doing XP. Furthermore that set of practices is carefully designed to fit together. Taking anything out has serious consequences. Yet one of the principles of XP and other agile methods is that they be self adaptive: that is you should change the process as you are developing the project. How does this notion fit in with the rigid practices of XP?

January 2001

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C3

C3 was the short name of the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation project, a payroll project at Chrysler which has since become famous as the 'birth project' of Extreme Programming.

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ConversationalStories

Here's a common misconception about agile methods. It centers on the way user stories are created and flow through the development activity. The misconception is that the product owner (or business analysts) creates user stories and then put them in front of developers to implement. The notion is that this is a flow from product owner to development, with the product owner responsible for determining what needs to be done and the developers how to do it.

4 February 2010

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OnsiteCustomer

On-site customer is one of the practices of extreme programming, one of the twelve mentioned in the White Book. It says that a customer should sit with the developers in their open work area to be available to answer questions and interact with the development team. Indeed they are part of the development team, and recognize that the success of the team depends as much on them as it does on the developers. They don't have to give up their reqular job to do this, but they must be physically present.

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PrinciplesOfXP

Every XP aficionado knows about the 4 values and 12 practices, but how many people know about the 15 principles? I'll confess I didn't when Kent talked about them at JAOO last week. After the talk I asked Kent about them: "were they in the White Book". "Yes", he replied, "cunningly hidden in a chapter called 'Basic Principles'".

4 October 2003

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XpVelocity

I've seen this confused in a couple of places now, so I feel the urge to re-state what the meaning of the term velocity is in Extreme Programming.

10 May 2004

bliki