XP : Short and Sweet

freshmeat.ne
t: Editorials – Xtreme Programming and Open Source Software Development

A nice short little freshmeat editorial on XP. I especially like the quote *In Russia there is a famous saying: “never show halfdone work to an idiot”</
i>, with which I agree completely. I’m currently working in an environment which has split personalities when it comes to development processes. We’re gr
owing
fairly rapidly so we’ve been putting effort in lately to try and formalize our processes and make it easier to have everyone on the same page.

Slight tangent…

I’m a firm believer in having the customer involved throughout the process but when developing commercial software, I believe that your sole concern should
be ensuring that your customer receives high-quality purpose-built software. Without involving the customer, how can you assure yourself that what you ar
e constructing will be useful and generate the necessary revenues? However, if you are going to involve the customer, you have to be prepared to manage ex
pectations on both sides. Under promise and over deliver as the old addage says, don’t promise the house and give them a shed.

Promise a shed and deliver a house…just make sure that the walls don’t fall down. I’m ok with a release date slipping (slightly) as long as it’s directl
y related to ensuring the quality of software being shipped. Of course I’m still a developer and, as such, somewhat shielded from business operation conce
rns.