Extreme Programming in Practice (Xp Series) - Softcover

Newkirk, James W.; Martin, Robert C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201709376 ISBN 13: 9780201709377

Publisher: Addison Wesley, 2001

Synopsis

Extreme Programming (XP) is a lightweight methodology that enables small teams of developers to achieve breakthrough productivity and software quality, even when faced with rapidly changing or unclear requirements. In this new book, top object-oriented consultants James Newkirk and Robert Martin walk through an entire XP project, chronicling the adoption of XP by a team that has never used it before. Along the way, they show how to overcome the obstacles facing XP adopters, and present realistic XP best practices virtually any development organization can benefit from. The case study in this book is real, driven by the needs of a real customer. The artifacts, code, user stories, and anecdotes are all real, drawn from videotaped meetings throughout the project's development process. The result: an exceptionally true-to-life narrative, complete with mistakes and false starts, and reflecting the ebb and flow of a real project. For organizations considering XP, this may be the most realistic and useful guide ever produced. For project managers, developers, software engineers, XP customers, and upper-level managers.

About this title

Review

Theory is fine but practice makes perfect. Extreme Programming in Practice is the story of the Object Mentor company's first foray into XP after the Web site it designed and implemented failed. It takes chutzpah to use your own incompetence as a lesson for others.

OK, the "customer" here is internal but the processes the team went through were intended to be identical to those it would use with an external customer. The project was the site-registration system--the part that had failed. There was no question of fixing it, instead the team sat down with its "customer" and started from scratch.

The resulting story as told in Extreme Programming In Practice is fascinating because it's real. By chapter six the authors have already come unstuck through not using automatic testing on code, allowing the "customer" to miss iteration meetings, creating overlong iterations and implementing infrastructure code before the tasks dependent on them. What's especially interesting is that the authors knew what XP said they should be doing yet, for various perceived reasons: internal politics, other work and existing practices among others, chose to do something different.

Almost all these choices caused problems. These ranged from poor time estimates and lots of infrastructure reworking to simply delivering the "wrong" features. Object Mentor learned a lot from its mistakes and if you're about to try XP, you could too, saving a lot of time, money and credibility. --Steve Patient

From the Back Cover

Extreme Programming is the most exciting revolution to hit the software engineering industry in the last decade. But what exactly is XP? And how do you XP? Simply put, XP is about playing to win. If you are serious about becoming an agile organization, decreasing your time to market, keeping your development team happy, and improving the overall quality of your software, then XP is for you.

Extreme Programming in Practice provides a candid, refreshing, insider¿s view of how an XP project works. The artifacts presented in this book are real, the user stories are real, and the anecdotes are real. The book represents all-access, uncensored XP. The authors have chosen example over explanation, so that you can personalize the tenets of XP and put them into practice on your next development project.

The book is supported with sample code and test examples. You can learn how to emphasize planning in your project; deliver multiple iterations of your project (each with increasing business value); gather customer feedback as you build; and test the integrity of your code without halting your development efforts. The authors also provide a handy summary of more than a dozen "lessons learned" in XP implementation.

Extreme Programming in Practice will help you separate the hype from reality and learn how to implement XP in your organization. Witness the thought process of an XP team unfold. Observe the mistakes that were made along the way, as well as their corrections. See the ebb and flow of a real development project. Finish the release. Play to win.

0201709376B04202001

Edition details

• Publisher: Addison Wesley
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0201709376
• ISBN 13: 9780201709377
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224