A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming [Paperback]

David Astels (Author), Granville Miller (Author), Miroslav Novak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0130674826 | ISBN-13: 978-0130674821 | Edition: 1

Practically overnight, XP has become the world's #1 agile methodology. Now, A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming delivers all the guidance and best practices you need to succeed with XP in your organization. This easy, concise introduction covers the entire project lifecycle, every key task, every participant's role -- and how to make XP's principles work in the real world!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The one-stop guide for everyone getting started with eXtreme Programming!

• Making XP principles work in the real world
• Best practices for the entire project lifecycle: conceptualization through delivery
• Understand the role of every participant: developer, manager, and customer
• Specific solutions to the most common XP transitioning problems

Practically overnight, Extreme Programming (XP) has become one of the world's leading agile methodologies. Now, there's an easy, concise introduction that delivers all the guidance and best practices you need to make XP work in your organization!

A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming doesn't just introduce key XP principles such as simplicity, communication, and feedback: it shows how to make them work in the real world. Using a start-to-finish case study, this book covers the entire project lifecycle, every key task, and the role of every XP participant—developers, managers, and customers. Coverage includes:

• Envisioning your proposed software system
• Writing effective user stories and acceptance tests
• Planning for regular releases and iterations
• "Coding with intention"
• Best practices for integration, refactoring, testing, and delivery
• Overcoming the challenges of transitioning to XP

Want all the benefits XP can provide? Want to implement XP as smoothly and painlessly as possible? This is the place to start!

About the Author

DAVE ASTELS has more than 17 years' experience as a software developer in areas ranging from embedded environment control to intellectual property protection systems to electrical energy trading systems. For more than a decade, he has been working almost exclusively with object technologies. He runs his own consulting company specializing in Extreme Programming and pervasive Java solutions.

GRANVILLE MILLER is co-author of Addison Wesley's Advanced Use Case Modeling series of books, has presented tutorials at object-oriented technology conferences worldwide, and has worked with companies ranging from early-stage startups to the world's most established software giants.

MIROSLAV NOVAK has been a proponent of eXtreme Programming for nearly three years, actively following its development and taking advantage of opportunities to apply its tenets. Miroslav is a Mentor at Togethersoft Corporation. He currently teaches and develops workshops and contributes to product development specification and testing.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (February 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130674826
• ISBN-13: 978-0130674821
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,681,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Real world advice, July 27, 2002

By 

Stewart Baird (Whitby, Porirua New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming (Paperback)

The XP book market is getting increasingly crowded; this book differs from the pack as it walks through examples in an easy to grasp format. The book is geared towards Java developers; this is not a problem per se but non-Java developers should be aware of this. My copy of this book is beaten and worn!

I think this is one of the only XP books that links back into Agile Modelling. This is very helpful as XP readers sometimes get the impression that XP throws the baby out with the bathwater; design is still important!

Another aspect I liked was the inclusion of quite few photographs; this helps bridge the gap between the words and understanding. If you're seriously interested in using XP you should get this book.

Where was this book 2 years ago!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars XP - Explained Succintly and Iteratively!, August 14, 2002

By 

Srihari Mailvaganam (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming (Paperback)

Although I have been a follower of XP and have read David Astels works before, I was initially apprehensive on reading another book on XP programming.

One of the goals of XP is to be succinct and iterative - ironically I had difficulty finding XP books that had followed the goals of XP. My assumption is that many of the books have been rushed to publication.

"Practical Guide to XP" has many more plusses than minuses. There are actual hands-on examples, with code. About a quarter of the book is devoted to test and source code from an XP project. I am normally not a big fan of having complete source code from a project in a book - aside from making the book heavier it generally serves little purpose. In this particular case, it makes sense as the processes of XP can be "followed through". XP is a development process/philosophy - as such it is better for newcomers to follow an actual implementation to fully appreciate the concepts.

This book will help somewhat to clear the fog on the many views on XP. XP, like all development methodologies, is a combination of art and science. There will be many views on methods of practicing XP and each project will be unique. This book will help you decide what you need to use for your particular project.

Hope this helps - please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good coverage of XP project cycle, April 20, 2002

By 

Jim Doyle (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming (Paperback)

A Practical Guide is at its best when bringing together different strands of thought from the XP community: referencing discussions from the WikiWikiWeb, bringing in the red-yellow-green metaphor for test-first programming, using concrete examples like those in Martin Fowler's book to illustrate refactoring. Another key contribution are the concrete examples from experience, of user stories and acceptance tests, conceptualization activities that are typically the hardest to nail down when first considering XP. Sidebars that draw connections between XP and tools like Ant and CruiseControl are useful as a starting point for figuring out how to support a real project.

Having the whole XP project cycle lined up in one book, extended with meatier, more detailed material (like the unit testing and refactoring discussions), should help the reader get a handle on the whole process and get a feel for what the day-to-day work will be like. It's certainly more digestible than tracking down dozens of XP papers and articles online, so it should be handy for people looking to quickly get up to speed on what XP currently looks like.