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They missed perhaps the most important reason for resistance to introduction of Extreme Programming (and any other labeled bundle of practices): resistance to c

They missed perhaps the most important reason for resistance to introduction of Extreme Programming (and any other labeled bundle of practices): resistance to cargo culting. These kinds of bundle-of-practices-given-a-label feel very consultant-y to most developers, which triggers a ton of natural suspicion. Rather than looking at each practice on its own and showing how it fits into existing workflows, the bundle-of-practices is justified with somewhat handwavy explanations (and they must be handwavy, because we haven't talked about specifics yet), then each practice comes pre-justified because it's part of the bundle. If you want to effect change in a good engineering org composed of rightly-cautious engineers, you can't give them marketing copy for a bundle-of-practices and expect buy in. Instead, you should use the bundle as a starting point for investigating the specific practices that you'd like to see implemented, and then explain and show why you believe those specific practices will work. "We should do XP" breaks down into "we should do TDD" and "we should do pair programming", but it also breaks down much further than that. Start with "when I write a failing test before implementing a feature I find that I move much faster". Discuss specifics, not consultant-fueled buzzwords.

torben-friis 2y ago
I worked for a famous UK consultancy that advocated for XP, lasted about a month. Turns out they wanted me to spend 8 hours a day pairing with clients. XP was their excuse to make sure that all your working time is spent writing code in front of a video feed - no downtime/thinking/checking emails. A micromanagement hell. They also sent me straight to clients whose language and tech I had never touched, selling me (unknown to me at the time) as someone with a decade of experience in the language. When I discovered that and protested they told me the problem was my inhability to hide my lack of expertise from the client and handed me a digital copy of "how to make friends and influence people". Let's just say, I'm very wary of programming gurus now.
atoav 2y ago
The biggest problem I have with these practises is that just following them would be counter to what good engineering is — basically like the old saying: "If all you got is a hammer..." As an engineer I like to insist on the right to decide which approach is the best for any given project. I am not saying there isn't a ton of good lessons learned in the foundation of those practises (there is). But for every project one has to talk about how to organize it best and that depends on a ton of things only some of which are technical.

torben-friis 2y ago

I worked for a famous UK consultancy that advocated for XP, lasted about a month. Turns out they wanted me to spend 8 hours a day pairing with clients. XP was their excuse to make sure that all your working time is spent writing code in front of a video feed - no downtime/thinking/checking emails. A micromanagement hell. They also sent me straight to clients whose language and tech I had never touched, selling me (unknown to me at the time) as someone with a decade of experience in the language. When I discovered that and protested they told me the problem was my inhability to hide my lack of expertise from the client and handed me a digital copy of "how to make friends and influence people". Let's just say, I'm very wary of programming gurus now.

atoav 2y ago

The biggest problem I have with these practises is that just following them would be counter to what good engineering is — basically like the old saying: "If all you got is a hammer..." As an engineer I like to insist on the right to decide which approach is the best for any given project. I am not saying there isn't a ton of good lessons learned in the foundation of those practises (there is). But for every project one has to talk about how to organize it best and that depends on a ton of things only some of which are technical.