Extreme Programming Brings Out Extreme Opinions
from the certainly-brings-out-extremes-in-people dept
We’ve mentioned the concept of extreme programming before. It’s definitely been growing in popularity, and I hear of many more people I know who are using it. For those who don’t know, it’s a methodology for programming, that (as it’s key point) involves two people working on code together. Wired Magazine is running an article looking at the phenomenon. While everyone likes to debate whether or not it’s useful, what I find most interesting is that “extreme programming” certainly seems to bring out the “extremes” in people. Some people swear by it, and say it’s the best thing to ever happen. Others insist it’s a crazy fad that does more harm than good and drags down good programmers, while making bad programmers look better. I figure, like anything that brings out the “extremes” in people, it’s somewhere in the middle. There are probably some areas where it’s very useful, and I’m sure some programmers really like it, as it has certain elements that make their jobs more enjoyable. At the same time, it’s not right in every situations, and it has received more than its fair share of hype.
Comments on “Extreme Programming Brings Out Extreme Opinions”
Two Heads are better than one ...
It only stands to reason that two heads are better than one … My brother and I would code HTML back in the day ( grin ) ( early 90’s ) and we always worked as a team … as a result we could produce webpages much faster and spend a lot less time troubleshooting what was wrong …
Re: Two Heads are better than one ...
You haven’t been grouped with a dead-weight developer that got glore for the double work you had to do.
Re: Re: Two Heads are better than one ...
No , I did not.
But then again, if you let someone else take the glory for your work than you have only yourself to blame.
Re: Two Heads are better than one ...
But they’re more expensive. Can two people working together get more done than if they work individually on separate tasks? If not, is the result enough better to outweight the cost?
Re: Re: Two Heads are better than one ...
Not if two people can produce code in 1/2 the time … not to mention the wasted hours of a tired programmer looking at the same line of code over and over again and not realizing the mistake.
Not quite accurate...
Extreme Programming (XP) goes way beyond paired programming. In fact, paired programming is just one of many practices included in the much larger umbrella that is XP.
Paired programming may or may not work well in all environments or with all teams, and the same can be said for many of the other tenets of XP. Regardless of the practicality (or lack thereof) of implementing XP in the enterprise, I think many teams could benefit from keeping XP practices in mind.
Read more about it[extremeprogramming.org]