Join the Agile Community

With more than 4261 members located around the globe, the Agile Alliance is driven by the values and principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We support those who explore and apply Agile principles and practices to make the software industry productive, humane, and sustainable.

Knowledge Repository

Search for text or agile alliance members

Extreme Programming Considered Harmful for Reliable Software Development

by Keefer, Gerald (2002-06-01) permalink

Read the full article

Argues that XP might be an option for small projects requiring fast delivery with talented engineers and shallow technical requirements. Advises other projects to stay away.

Rating: 3.9 out of 5 (24 ratings)
Source: --- {}
File Type: PDF
Owner: admin
Categories: Change Management, Extreme Programming, Refactoring, Testing
Updated: September 7, 2006


Comments


Comments admin (17 May 19:06)

There are many good points made within this document but I found that the author was so aggressive in “Putting down” XP that it put me as a reader on the defensive. I am a software developer and keen advocate of paired programming, agile software development, refactoring and test driven development. I work often in a XP environment, but I don’t and will never limit myself to strictly adhering to XP. My answer to XP is I use what works when it works, sometimes that means strictly adhering to the principles of XP, more often though it means adapting and changing the rules to fit the solution space. One point I saw made and could not leave without comment was regarding constantly refactoring being bad because it cost time both constantly modifying your test suite. If refactoring is carried out correctly it should not affect your behavior and therefore your test suites will remain untouched 99% of the time. The tests protect you from injecting errors during refactoring Stay flexible