Re: p5ee xp?

On Wed, Jun 19, 2002 at 03:59:07PM -0600, Rob Nagler wrote:
> Stephen Adkins writes:
> > I am the only customer now...
> 
> It's difficult to do XP when you are the customer and the programmer
> and there are no other programmers or customers.  One of the four core
> values of XP is feedback and communication.  Talking to yourself is
> not communicating and you certainly can't give feedback to yourself.
> 
> XP works because the practices interact in such a way to reinforce
> good design while focusing on producing business value.

Yep.  XP is like an arch.  Asking which stone holds up the arch
is asking the wrong question.  Getting the 5 or 13 stones you 
find in an arch isn't enough - you need to arrange them in an
archlike pattern and in a place where they bear load.

> > If anyone wants to become a customer, make yourself known.
> > You will express yourself by writing some User Stories.
> > If they are interesting enough to me, they might make it
> > into the Release Plan. ;-)
> 
> Well, that's not how XP works.  In XP, the customer defines the
> requirements and priorities.  The programmer has the freedom to choose
> *how* she implements *what* the customer wants.  It's a simple formula
> which ensures programmers don't get "creative" and customers don't get
> "technical".  That separation is essential if you want a high-quality
> product which satisfies the customer.

If you want to return to the arch metaphor, you can't build
an arch with only half the stones.  The reason why XP works is
because of the tight, constant communication between the customer
(writing stories, selecting features for each iteration and writing
acceptance tests) and the developers (designing and implementing the
system, writing unit tests, etc.).


In general, it tends to be very difficult to make XP work with open
source projects.  Not impossible, but very difficult.  And doubly
so when you're dealing with developers scattered all over creation
that don't tend to get a lot of face time together, or have reasonable
windows for iterations to implement interesting features in their
spare time.

Z.