Subj : Re: extreme programming (thoughts)
To   : comp.programming
From : bhoover@wecs.com
Date : Thu Jul 21 2005 11:15 pm

"Alf P. Steinbach" wrote:
> 
> * Phlip:
> > Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
> >
> > > * matt wrote:
> >
> > > > so did the commies.
> >
> > > I think it's much the same thing.
> >
> > Matt, another thing you'l get in these threads you spawned is a lot of
> > people, like you, with no XP experience, expressing their own frustrations.
> 
> As usual you didn't or was unwilling to see the point.
> 
> Anyone who has done real development has XP experience, because XP was
> originally an attempt at capturing real development practices.
> 
> The problem with XP as "XP", putting a name to it and trying to define it,
> wrt. to producing quality or anything at all, is the attempt at reducing
> intelligence to simple imposed rules, a "methodology", which is just urine,
> and therefore also very popular with pointy-haired persons.

Yep.  It's catch 22.  Irony.  Part of the reason the practices were
effective was they were not formalized.  How does one formalize
informality?  However, XP authors *do* say, XP is not a one size fits
all.  And they've helped legitimize the practices, and explode some
myths -- like overtime, and working oneself into a frazzel is the best
way to stay on schedule.  Ideally, XP is about busting programming
methodology dogma, and bringing to light why some projects succeed in
spite of it.  But if XP itself becomes dogma, that kind of defeats the
purpose.

Pair programming is probably XP's most contraversial -- disconcerts more
than any other aspect of it.  It's just a different way of thinking --
out loud.  Which seems like it would be a lot slower.  And one's ability
to communicate something, lags significantly behind their understanding
of that to be communicated.  In a sense though, that's part of point,
part of why pair programming works -- less chance of writing anything
you've not really thought through, or understood.  

I've never done formal XP, but I have done pair programming.  It wasn't
as bad as I thought.  It does remove some of the artist, craftsman,
pride of programming aspect, but that too has its up side.  You're not
as attached to your work, and therefore more amenable to agility, and
fewer tangents, and tunnel vision.  Pair partners sanity check each
other.

Bryan

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