Steve, My take on extreme

Steve,

My take on extreme programming is that it works best when the participants are the sort of multi-talented folk alluded to in the article. Without the vision that comes with concern for the big picture, extreme programming can be high on activity but low on progress.

Progress requires activity but not all activity leads to progress. Re-factoring is a fantastic tool for keeping code clean and validated as the path to progress is traversed but re-factoring activity of itself, does not guarantee progress.

I once saw a worked example of XP where the author said "every time I do this example, it comes out differently".

The non-determinism of that makes me think "art", not science!

In short, I think XP has some great ideas for making multi-talented developers even more productive. However, in this industry, the bottomless pit of need for multi-talented developers is the key bug that needs to be fixed.

regards,
Sean

by Sean McGrath on 6/30/08 at 1:30 pm |
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