The second in my series of quotes from Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck. Once a week I post a quote from XP that I think is really important to consider when developing software. This is from the second page of Chapter 8:
“Assume simplicity-Treat every problem as if it can be solved with ridiculous simplicity. The time you save on the 98% of problems for which this is true will give you ridiculous resources to apply to the other 2%. In many ways, this is the hardest principle for programmers to swallow. We are traditionally told to plan for the future, to design for reuse. Instead, XP says to do a good job (tests, refactoring, communication) of solving today’s job today and trust your ability to add complexity in the future where you need it. The economics of software favor this approach.”
Two guys built Twitter in two weeks.
Looks for more XP Quotes of the Week to be forthcoming.
Past quotes:
books, sdlc
I recently got around to reading Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck. My wife had gotten it for me a year or two ago when she read a recommendation on Bram Cohen’s blog. Bram is most notable for creating BitTorrent he recommedned the XP book, Peopleware and Non-Manipulative Selling.
Since it’s publishing in 2000 this book has caused a good amount of change in the software industry in the take of agile processes and adding things like Continuous Integration to traditional waterfall projects.
Once a week I’m going to post a quote from XP that I think is really important to consider when developing software. The first is from the beginning of Chapter 4:
“…there are four variables in software development”
The way the software development game is played in this model is that external forces (customers, managers) get to pick the values of any three of the variables. The development team gets to pick the resultant value of the fourth variable.”
Every project and development manager should read this full chapter before planning a project. it’s only 5 pages so it only takes a few minutes.
Looks for more XP Quotes of the Week to be forthcoming.
books, sdlc
XP
Review from Amazon: It started with punk. Hip-hop, rave, graffiti, and gaming took it to another level, and now modern technology has made the ideas and innovations of youth culture increasingly intimate and increasingly global at the same time.
In The Pirate’s Dilemma, VICE magazine’s Matt Mason — poised to become the Malcolm Gladwell of the iPod Generation — brings the exuberance of a passionate music fan and the technological savvy of an IT wizard to the task of sorting through the changes brought about by the interface of pop culture and innovation. He charts the rise of various youth movements — from pirate radio to remix culture — and tracks their ripple effect throughout larger society. Mason brings a passion and a breadth of intelligence to questions such as the following: How did a male model who messed with disco records in the 1970s influence the way Boeing designs airplanes? Who was the nun who invented dance music, and how is her influence undermining capitalism as we know it? Did three high school kids who remixed Nazis into Smurfs in the 1980s change the future of the video game industry? Can hip-hop really bring about world peace? Each chapter crystallizes the idea behind one of these fringe movements and shows how it combined with technology to subvert old hierarchies and empower the individual.
Amazon.com: The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism: Books: Matt Mason
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