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A Discussion on Extreme Programming
Assignment #1
CSci 4081, Fall 2002
10/25/02



Kent Beck’s article “Embracing Change with Extreme Programming” is an introduction to one of the most recent and prominent variations on the theme of the waterfall, the original methodology of software engineering. This improvement is called Extreme Programming (XP). Beck describes the process as one which leaves many of the flaws of conventional software process behind. Such flaws include situations where programmers discover “three-fourths of the way through that [they] were one-third of the way through” (Beck 1999, 70). Beck then continues with the skeletal structure of XP. He discusses that the fundamental unit of the methodology, a story, is a customer-selected set of highest priority features which should be implemented first. Beck emphasizes how each story is crucial and must be “business-oriented, testable, and estimable” (1999, 71). Each story contains responsibilities to be divided amongst the programmers as equally as possible, and the repetitive creation of these stories accumulated over an extended period of time, within a given budget, produces the overall completion of the software. Beck emphasizes how communication and trust are at the heart of XP. He states that the development team and customer must “build a trust relationship”, and if it falters, the team should consider where the problem lies and question the quality of communication (Beck 1999, 75). Programmers work in an open environment, which is suitable for easier means of communication than a conglomerate of isolated offices. Beck acknowledges that XP is not the software development panacea; for such a process to succeed, every participant must be willing to adhere to the structure.
For a medium-sized software development organization to come close to maximizing its output in a cost-efficient manner, its members must unanimously follow...