Extreme Programming Perspectives

Rating:
Summary: for potential or early-stage adopters of xp
Review: Extreme Programming Perspectives is a useful book for those who are considering adopting XP or who are in the process of adopting XP. Two themes that run through the book are (a) simple is not the same as simplistic and (b) complex behavior can result from the interaction of simple rules. While neither of these principles is surprising, it is important to keep them in mind when reading this book. The essays contained here cover situations where XP users have tried changing or customizing the rules at the foundation of XP and their experiences with the resulting behavior.

For those considering adopting XP, this book discusses projects where XP was tried, not always successfully, that provide food for thought when considering XP in your own environment. It also contains marketing material aimed at persuading your management to try agile methods. The marketing material ranges from anecdotal to very concrete mathematical and scientific studies. The anecdotal material is nothing not available elsewhere, but the more concrete essays may prove useful to some.

For those in the process of adopting XP, this book discusses strategies that have been used to sell XP to developers and to encourage them to adopt the principles of agile methods. Personally, I found these essays to be the most important in the book. Not only have I not seen much similar material elsewhere, I have never encountered the difficulties selling XP to management that I have in selling XP to developers. The essays in this section cover ways that the rules of XP can be bent or modified to be more palatable and ways that the rules can be introduced slowly in a team environment. As is true throughout the book, not all these experiences are positive.

XP Perspectives is a large book, and not all the essays are equally valuable. In particular, roughly 10% of the book discusses XP in an academic environment. This isnft really surprising given the backgrounds of the editors but it doesnft seem relevant to those I would consider the primary audience of this book. There are also a few chapters that are clearly written by someone with something to gsellh and these are frankly annoying. While there is some acknowledgement of other agile methods, this book really is XP-centric and Ifm not sure I would recommend it to someone already in the process of adopting a non-XP agile methodology.

On the whole, however, I would recommend this book to those beginning to adopt XP or considering adopting XP. It doesnft preach to the choir so much as some other XP books and it discusses experiences both positive and negative (well, ok, more positive than negative). As such it will give the reader a lot to think about.