Extreme Programming
from the programming-while-bungee-jumping dept
The San Jose Mercury News has an article about the new trends towards “extreme programming”, which basically appears to be two people programming together. Some people like it, some people hate it. Like anything, I imagine it’s good for some things and not so good for others. Fans say that it creates more creative and flexible solutions. However, others say that it simply drags down good programmers while making bad programmers look better, and that it isn’t particularly productive.
Comments on “Extreme Programming”
New Software Development Theories
The problem I have with most of these theoretical approaches is that they work splendidly, assuming you work in an organization with intelligent, englightened management from the top down, a hiring process that guarantees only highly-skilled and intelligent programmers, all of whom share the same vision, etc.
The trouble, of course, is that 99.99% of developers will never work in such an organization. I’d love to see a theory of software development that accounts for clueless management, incompetent H-1B guys from India who churn out bug-ridden spaghetti code, etc.
Wrong name
The problem with Extreme Programming is the name. Our clients hate to hear that you are doing “extreme” programming. They would prefer “reliable” or “good but inexpensive ” or “just freaking get it done” programming. That is why many of us refer to this style of programming as “Test First” programming since one of the points is to make test code before writing the actual code.