gmane.comp.programming.extreme-programming

Your chance to influence how agile is defined in an upcoming IEEE-standard

Erik Lundh — 2008-12-01T00:01:43

I am going to the finnish Lapland (right where Santa Claues lives) on Sunday November 30 for 72 hours of intense discussions about what Agile is. Participants are invited internationally from industry and academia However, I feel that the participants could use additional input. Earlier work on this standard has spent some time on interpretations of things like "How much documentation" and even to some degree what the manifesto really means. I feel that we need to define Agile by what it is useful for. A definition of what good Agile does might last longer than a detailed description of current practices in the evolving art of Agile. Who wants a standard for what Agile is? Well, people who have to comply with e g safety-critical requirements from hard-nosed government bodies will appreciate support from an actual rationale for going from waterfall(ish) development to Agile. And just being convinced that agile helps does not impress on auditors. A standard that defines agile in a way that makes

What other professions pair?

Pieter Nagel — 2008-11-29T09:51:42

I've been thinking a lot about explaining pair-programming to other people lately. As a minor tangent to that, I've begun wondering: what other professions regularly employ multiple people to simultaneously do work that, one the face of it, seems could be done by only one - and no one bats an eye? There's pilots and copilots. Since their controls are interlinked, it would seem as if only one is needed (as far as wings & flaps go). Since this is done for safety reasons, mostly, this analogy would work better in software shops that are concerned about defect rate. In advertising, there's the practice of a lot of people together around one table, brainstorming ad campaings for a client. In theory they could just split up and each one think up a slogan alone, but that yields inferior results. The problem with this analogy is that if focusses on creativity, and management often doesn't have strong feel for the role of creativity in programming. Maybe two cops patrolling the streets in one car is a better analo

ANN: NUnit 2,5 Beta 1 Release

Charlie Poole — 2008-11-28T05:28:11

Hi All, Today we are announcing the first Beta release of NUnit 2.5. This release has lots of new features, ready to use. Important hilights include: * Parameterized tests, with a set of attributes that allow you to supply data to your tests in different ways. * Test methods may be static and generic methods are supported. * Generic test fixtures may be instantiated multiple times with different type parameters. * Tests may be run using a separate thread and the Apartment State may be specified individually for a test, fixture or assembly. * Tests may be run in a separate process using the CLR version of your choice. * A timeout value may be specified so that tests are cancelled if they get into an infinite loop. For the full story of this release the release notes at http://nunit.org/?p=releaseNotes&r=2.5. You may download the release at http://nunit.org/?p=downloads. Charlie ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Un

Blog Entry - Embedded Collaboration

Dave Rooney — 2008-11-27T20:55:31

"In a meeting today at a client, people were talking continuously about how the IT organization and business have to improve their collaboration. The problem is, though, that what these people are saying is collaboration isn't really what they think it is." http://practicalagility.blogspot.com/2008/11/embedded-collaboration.html

Need advice preparing the waters for XP

Pieter Nagel — 2008-11-27T16:19:25

I wish to (re)introduce XP to our team, because our system is suffering from years of technical debt. Our original team used to do (relatively complete) XP from 2000-2003, but the original team split under acrimonious circumstances, leaving just me alone. Unfortunately I was unable to reintroduce XP when we hired our first new developer. In retrospect, pairing with the same person for weeks on end was not a good idea, and I was not mature enough to shift the "master/novice" imbalance into an "equal peers" situation. After two months he asked that we stop pairing since it wasn't working for him; and XP died. I had breakfast with the MD yesterday, and she is very supportive of the idea of us going XP instead. We share a mutual concern about or development velocity, and she said the XP planning practices sounded like "common sense". I've begun floating the idea of pair programming to the team as well, and it seems most developers would be open. The catch is this: the initial extra developer, who had the bad

Testing non-deterministic methods

Rodolfo Carvalho — 2008-11-27T13:11:56

Hi, I'm puzzled with the challenge to write tests to methods that return "arbitrary" output. Is it possible? I mean, good tests that are actually meaningful (I can think of testing for data types, which I don't think is of much use...). Specifically, I'm writing a "home made" Python program to treat graphs, and some common algorithms in this field do not work as 2 + 2 = 4, since there may be several right answers to problems like finding a Minimum Spanning Tree. I would now write a polynomial algorithm to find a candidate solution to the Travelling Salesman Problem using some heuristics (so, I don't intend to find the best solution, just one that is close), and have no clue on how to solve it trough TDD. Insights? (I may propose this task to a dojo session soon if we're lucky!) Rodolfo Carvalho [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremepro

Finally! Agile + CMMI "official" publication from SEI !

Hillel Glazer — 2008-11-23T02:12:47

Hey Everyone! Apologies to all who've already heard from other sources. It's come up a number of times in lists and in private. The idea of an "official" position on Agile development from the SEI. Well, the wait is finally over. CMMI(R) or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both!Hillel Glazer (Entinex, Inc.) Jeff Dalton (Broadsword Solutions Corporation) David Anderson (David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.) Mike Konrad Sandy Shrum * Technical Note * CMU/SEI-2008-TN-003 PDF Download Agile development methods and CMMI (Capability Maturity Model(R) Integration) best practices are often perceived to be at odds with each other. This report clarifies why the discord need not exist and proposes that CMMI and Agile champions work toward deriving benefit from using both and exploit synergies that have the potential to dramatically improve business performance.

ANN - Reminder- Agile Ottawa Meeting - Monday Nov. 24th

Dave Rooney — 2008-11-22T16:54:15

Hi folks, (Apologies to those who receive this message more than once - I'm trying to hit as broad an audience as possible.) This is a reminder for the Agile Ottawa meeting this coming Monday, November 24th at 7:00 PM. It will be held at The Code Factory , 246 Queen St., Second Floor, above The Green Papaya restaurant. The phone number at the Code Factory is 613-231-3831. No RSVP required, and hope to see as many people as possible there.

XP + DVCS

Tim Ottinger — 2008-11-21T22:24:47

Re: your use of distributed version control systems and extreme programming. Is your git/hg/bzr/etc just "svn you can use away from the intranet" or do you have specific ways of working that take advantage of D part of DVCS? Tim ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:extremeprogramming-digest< at >yahoogroups.com mailto:extremeprogramming-fullfeatured< at >yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >yahoogroups.com <

energized work and individual contributions

D. André Dhondt — 2008-11-21T16:24:17

From the perspective of supporting energized work, helping our team gel, and for nurturing individual developer growth, my team is currently building a model for identifying and valuing individual contributions. Ultimately each developer will end up with a radar chart ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart) that highlights that person's strengths in the team, and can help others know who to emulate or learn from. We hope that when we superimpose all the radar charts, we have all the axes covered. So, what do you think these axes should be? - business comprehension (understands what is valuable to the client, what the client needs, what the priorities are) - technical competence (or should this be broken into testing skills, clean coding skills, familiarity with platforms/technologies? or maybe another radar chart for this specifically?) - rapidity (ability to narrow scope and get things done quickly without increasing code debt) - sustainability (consistently makes changes th

Pair Debugging

Mark Needham — 2008-11-20T14:30:20

Hey, I've been working with XP for just over two years, pairing nearly the whole time but one of the areas where I have yet to see it used effectively is when debugging a problem as a pair. In these situations I often feel completely lost as my pair moves around the code base exploring options - I've tried asking what their thought process is and how they work out where to look next but it seems more of a hindrance than adding value. Anyone got any ideas of how to pair debug more effectively? Cheers, Mark [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http:

Fixed Duration Iterations

Kevin Trethewey (Driven Software — 2008-11-20T13:57:02

I am working with a team of four domain-experts-who-also-code. They are not working on a single unified product per se, but are building in-house (financial modelling) tools that are consumed via excel. They need some guidance on how to introduce a bit more process into their routines. These are a couple of their pain points... * Are unable to polish code enough to get it to a point where it is production ready * Have an issue with duplicate code being developed because of lack of communication * Lack skills to develop code that is well layered, and follows proper design principles, so code tends to be hard to extend and maintain I think one of the mechanisms that will address their issues is to use continuous integration and make small regular releases to production. The question I have is this - the developers are all, as I mentioned, domain experts in their own individual (but related) fields. They do not all work on the same features at the same time, and therefore they will each compelete their indiv

Blog entry - The Practices Do Matter... at First

Dave Rooney — 2008-11-20T10:24:10

"With all the recent talk about the Decline and Fall of Agile, I've seen a number of comments about how we should focus on the Values and Principles of the Agile Manifesto and not on the practices of any one approach. I agree with this to a point. Once a team has matured within a particular process then absolutely they can really begin to tailor it to suit their local circumstances using the Values and Principles as their guide." http://practicalagility.blogspot.com/2008/11/practices-do-matter-at-first.html

REMINDER: about Agile-ANN

Joseph Little — 2008-11-17T17:16:50

Hi, Agile-ANN is for announcements that can be about almost anything: * courses * jobs or consulting gigs that are open * new or existing groups * group meetings, conferences * services offered * etc., etc. Read 'em or post 'em. Here: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Agile-ANN/ And join. You'll be surprised how much you'll observe about the Agile community just by watching. The hope is that regular discussion groups will can be for...well...regular discussion. Scope is worldwide. Please tell others about this Agile-ANN list. Regards, Joe ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.y

Article: When Agile Goes Bad

Esther Schindler — 2008-11-18T22:22:20

When Agile Projects Go Bad Your software development projects can benefit from Agile - assuming it's really what's used. Learn about the sins that have been committed in the name of "Agile." With input from two of the Agile manifesto signatories. http://www.cio.com/article/464169/When_Agile_Projects_Go_Bad ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:extremeprogramming-digest< at >yahoogroups.com mailto:extremeprogramming-fullfeatured< at >yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group

REMINDER: about Agile-ANN

Joseph Little — 2008-11-17T17:06:36

Duplicate Code in One's Testing Code

Shlomi Fish — 2008-11-13T19:01:51

Hi all! This is my first post to this list. I'm an open-source developer, essayist/blogger, advocate and organiser of real-life events. I use Linux at home, and primarily develop in Perl, but also in other languages. While I'm not doing fully XP-style development, I've been employing some XP-related methods like TDD and refactoring when doing FOSS development, and am interested in software management and philosophy. For more information about me refer to: * http://www.shlomifish.org/ * http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/ * http://search.cpan.org/~shlomif/ Now to the issue I'd like to raise. In "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler, Fowler says that one should expect to have duplicate code in the code of their automated test suite, and that's perfectly acceptable because many of the rules of refactoring don't apply to one's test code. So for example we can perform several assertions on one object which was initialiased using some parameters, and then perform similar assertions on another object th

[agileprogramming-ottawa-canada] New Blog Entry - Agile Circling the Drain?

Dave Rooney — 2008-11-16T16:54:12

In response to (and support of) James Shore's post "The Decline and Fall of Agile". http://practicalagility.blogspot.com/2008/11/agile-circling-drain.html

Practices (Shu), Principles (Ha) and Values (Ri)

Markus Gaertner — 2008-11-15T12:06:12

Lately I realized a correlation between practices, principles and values and the ShuHaRi principle. Here is a link to my blogentry on it: http://blog.shino.de/index.php?/archives/18-Skillset-development.html I appreciate feedback whether to follow this scheme or if it turns out to be a dead-end. Kind regards Markus Gärtner ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:extremeprogramming-digest< at >yahoogroups.com mailto:extremeprogramming-fullfeatured< at >yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe

Missing Messages

Matt — 2008-11-12T19:18:52

Quick question... Has anyone besides me on the list noticed messages getting dropped? I am set up to get individual emails sent to my Gmail account. Twice in the last week I have seen responses to messages that I never got. So I sign in to the group and sure enough, there's the message but it never showed up in my Gmail. Just curious if it's a problem on my end or Yahoo? Matt ------------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming< at >eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe< at >eGroups.com ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:extremeprogramming-digest< at >yahoogroups.com mailto:extrem

[ANN] Rising, Rothman and Poppendieck (Oh My!)

Cory Foy — 2008-11-11T02:54:09

Hi All, For those attending the SQE Agile Conference in Orlando, or for those in the area, I wanted to let you know about a joint Tampa Agile/Orlando Scrum meeting this Wednesday at 6:30pm with special guests Linda Rising, Johanna Rothman and Mary Poppendieck. You can find more information at the Agile Florida website: http://www.agileflorida.com/2008/11/08/rising-rothman-and-poppendiek-oh-my-orlando-talks-wednesday-1112/ Thanks!