Customer Reviews

Running an Agile Software Development Project

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Some motivation of the book is as a defense of Extreme Programming [XP], which lies at the core of agile methods. The text references the best known criticism of XP, namely Extreme Programming Refactored by Stevens [2003]. Perhaps you can read Holcombe in this context, as a rejoinder to that book. Note however that Holcombe never refers to the famous Chrysler project, that was the first major attempt at XP, and which was broadly considered a failure.

Holcombe does offer a thoughtful and detailed exposition of XP as currently understood by its proponents. Amusingly maybe to some readers, pair programming is only mentioned twice, and thence only briefly. To some critics of XP, this was its most extreme and wasteful aspect. Especially when labour costs could be expensive and need to be minimised. It appears from the book that XP now somewhat deprecates pair programming. So perhaps those earlier criticisms had some merit.

In the ongoing debate about XP, you should read the book just as much for what it omits as what it includes.

Having said this, the book has a good description of extensive testing. Something any development process for software needs.