5 ms·

Extreme Programming Revived?

10 points by ABS 12y ago

beat 12y ago
The hard thing about Extreme Programming is that it depends on 12 practices, the practices are independent, and some of the practices make management and/or programmers uncomfortable. The obvious one here is pair programming. Many programmers love pairing and immediately get the value, but many others find it exceedingly uncomfortable - so uncomfortable that they aren't willing to do it. And on the management side, practices like "The customer is always available" are hard to do in practice, as they challenge organizational boundaries. But without pairing, without a customer rep directly integrated into the team, without TDD, without collective ownership, without sustainable pace - it falls apart very quickly. And what do we get instead? Scrum. And not even real Scrum, but the BS pseudo-scrum that is pretty much tv and dessert first for authority-centric management and lazy uncommunicative programmers alike. So how do you pull that off? Well, you hire a bunch of "scrum masters", who are basically just busybodies with no actual authority, to go around pestering people all the time and calling meetings in order to get anything done at all. There's no control, everyone is miserable, old-timers pine for the days of Waterfall, and it just sucks.
beat 12y ago
This is also making me think of the best development environment I've ever seen, at a large government project. Two development teams, 15-20 developers total, were in a single large room. The outer edge of the room was lined with mini-cubicles so developers could have a space of their own - their own phone, a place for the coat, and really some privacy and retreat. The center of the room had two (later three) "islands" of computers. Each island had five computers - two on each side, one on the end. These were on wide desks with 2 24" monitors each, plenty of room for two or even three chairs per computer. There was a low cubicle wall dividing each of the desks - a little isolation, but if you stood up you could see/talk over it. All programming was done at the island computers. It wasn't so much pair programming as community programming. If a programmer was in the island area, either seated or standing, they were available to pair or help out. One programmer might be working alone on something, but it was in public, and help was immediately available at any time. And with all the space and clear monitor views, it wasn't unusual to see four or five people clustered around one computer, "pairing" and discussing a problem. This is the best combination of pairing, community, and privacy I've ever seen. It was tremendously productive and relaxing.
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  This kind of setup lets you "use the online manuals", by which I mean, just somewhat loudly ask a question of the room. Those who know the answer will swing by to help out, and those who don't will ignore it. If it doesn't happen too often, it doesn't even break peoples' concentration very much.
  - beat 12y ago
    It's also a great contrast to the "open" workspaces that plague the industry today. In those, people don't have a space that feels like their own, someplace quiet to go and think, etc. A fully open space is very oppressive. By granting explicit private spaces, everyone had somewhere to retreat. Meanwhile, all the "shared ownership" work of actual coding was done in public, in an open space - more open than "open" spaces, even, because no one had a personal space to invade for that work. Terrific design.

10 points by ABS 12y ago

beat 12y ago

The hard thing about Extreme Programming is that it depends on 12 practices, the practices are independent, and some of the practices make management and/or programmers uncomfortable. The obvious one here is pair programming. Many programmers love pairing and immediately get the value, but many others find it exceedingly uncomfortable - so uncomfortable that they aren't willing to do it. And on the management side, practices like "The customer is always available" are hard to do in practice, as they challenge organizational boundaries. But without pairing, without a customer rep directly integrated into the team, without TDD, without collective ownership, without sustainable pace - it falls apart very quickly. And what do we get instead? Scrum. And not even real Scrum, but the BS pseudo-scrum that is pretty much tv and dessert first for authority-centric management and lazy uncommunicative programmers alike. So how do you pull that off? Well, you hire a bunch of "scrum masters", who are basically just busybodies with no actual authority, to go around pestering people all the time and calling meetings in order to get anything done at all. There's no control, everyone is miserable, old-timers pine for the days of Waterfall, and it just sucks.

beat 12y ago

This is also making me think of the best development environment I've ever seen, at a large government project. Two development teams, 15-20 developers total, were in a single large room. The outer edge of the room was lined with mini-cubicles so developers could have a space of their own - their own phone, a place for the coat, and really some privacy and retreat. The center of the room had two (later three) "islands" of computers. Each island had five computers - two on each side, one on the end. These were on wide desks with 2 24" monitors each, plenty of room for two or even three chairs per computer. There was a low cubicle wall dividing each of the desks - a little isolation, but if you stood up you could see/talk over it. All programming was done at the island computers. It wasn't so much pair programming as community programming. If a programmer was in the island area, either seated or standing, they were available to pair or help out. One programmer might be working alone on something, but it was in public, and help was immediately available at any time. And with all the space and clear monitor views, it wasn't unusual to see four or five people clustered around one computer, "pairing" and discussing a problem. This is the best combination of pairing, community, and privacy I've ever seen. It was tremendously productive and relaxing.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago
This kind of setup lets you "use the online manuals", by which I mean, just somewhat loudly ask a question of the room. Those who know the answer will swing by to help out, and those who don't will ignore it. If it doesn't happen too often, it doesn't even break peoples' concentration very much.
- beat 12y ago
  It's also a great contrast to the "open" workspaces that plague the industry today. In those, people don't have a space that feels like their own, someplace quiet to go and think, etc. A fully open space is very oppressive. By granting explicit private spaces, everyone had somewhere to retreat. Meanwhile, all the "shared ownership" work of actual coding was done in public, in an open space - more open than "open" spaces, even, because no one had a personal space to invade for that work. Terrific design.