Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (XP Series) 2, Beck, Kent, Andres, Cynthia, eBook - Amazon.com

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Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (XP Series) 2nd Edition, Kindle Edition

by Kent Beck (Author), Cynthia Andres (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 646 ratings

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Accountability. Transparency. Responsibility. These are not words that are often applied to software development.

In this completely revised introduction to Extreme Programming (XP), Kent Beck describes how to improve your software development by integrating these highly desirable concepts into your daily development process.

The first edition of Extreme Programming Explained is a classic. It won awards for its then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Much has changed in five years. This completely rewritten second edition expands the scope of XP to teams of any size by suggesting a program of continuous improvement based on:

Five core values consistent with excellence in software development
Eleven principles for putting those values into action
Thirteen primary and eleven corollary practices to help you push development past its current business and technical limitations

Whether you have a small team that is already closely aligned with your customers or a large team in a gigantic or multinational organization, you will find in these pages a wealth of ideas to challenge, inspire, and encourage you and your team members to substantially improve your software development.

You will discover how to:

Involve the whole team–XP style
Increase technical collaboration through pair programming and continuous integration
Reduce defects through developer testing
Align business and technical decisions through weekly and quarterly planning
Improve teamwork by setting up an informative, shared workspace

You will also find many other concrete ideas for improvement, all based on a philosophy that emphasizes simultaneously increasing the humanity and effectiveness of software development.

Every team can improve. Every team can begin improving today. Improvement is possible–beyond what we can currently imagine. Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition, offers ideas to fuel your improvement for years to come.

ISBN-13

978-0321278654
Edition

2nd
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Addison-Wesley Professional
Publication date

November 17, 2004
Language

English
File size

2117 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“In this second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck organizes and presents five years’ worth of experiences, growth, and change revolving around XP. If you are seriously interested in understanding how you and your team can start down the path of improvement with XP, you must read this book.”

― Francesco Cirillo, Chief Executive Officer, XPLabs S.R.L. “The first edition of this book told us what XP was―it changed the way many of us think about software development. This second edition takes it farther and gives us a lot more of the ‘why’ of XP, the motivations and the principles behind the practices. This is great stuff. Armed with the ‘what’ and the ‘why,’ we can now all set out to confidently work on the ‘how’: how to run our projects better, and how to get agile techniques adopted in our organizations.”

― Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers LLC “This book is dynamite! It was revolutionary when it first appeared a few years ago, and this new edition is equally profound. For those who insist on cookbook checklists, there’s an excellent chapter on ‘primary practices,’ but I urge you to begin by truly contemplating the meaning of the opening sentence in the first chapter of Kent Beck’s book: ‘XP is about social change.’ You should do whatever it takes to ensure that every IT professional and every IT manager―all the way up to the CIO―has a copy of Extreme Programming Explained on his or her desk.”

― Ed Yourdon, author and consultant “XP is a powerful set of concepts for simplifying the process of software design, development, and testing. It is about minimalism and incrementalism, which are especially useful principles when tackling complex problems that require a balance of creativity and discipline.”

― Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of The Business of Software“ Extreme Programming Explained is the work of a talented and passionate craftsman. Kent Beck has brought together a compelling collection of ideas about programming and management that deserves your full attention. My only beef is that our profession has gotten to a point where such common-sense ideas are labeled ‘extreme.’...”

― Lou Mazzucchelli, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council“If your organization is ready for a change in the way it develops software, there’s the slow incremental approach, fixing things one by one, or the fast track, jumping feet first into Extreme Programming. Do not be frightened by the name, it is not that extreme at all. It is mostly good old recipes and common sense, nicely integrated together, getting rid of all the fat that has accumulated over the years.”

― Philippe Kruchten, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia“Sometimes revolutionaries get left behind as the movement they started takes on a life of its own. In this book, Kent Beck shows that he remains ahead of the curve, leading XP to its next level. Incorporating five years of feedback, this book takes a fresh look at what it takes to develop better software in less time and for less money. There are no silver bullets here, just a set of practical principles that, when used wisely, can lead to dramatic improvements in software development productivity.”

― Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit “Kent Beck has revised his classic book based on five more years of applying and teaching XP. He shows how the path to XP is both easy and hard: It can be started with fewer practices, and yet it challenges teams to go farther than ever.”

― William Wake, independent consultant “With new insights, wisdom from experience, and clearer explanations of the art of Extreme Programming, this edition of Beck’s classic will help many realize the dream of outstanding software development.”

― Joshua Kerievsky, author of Refactoring to Patterns and F --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Kent Beck consistently challenges software engineering dogma, promoting ideas like patterns, test-driven development, and Extreme Programming. Currently affiliated with Three Rivers Institute and Agitar Software, he is the author of many Addison-Wesley titles.

Cynthia Andres holds a B.S. in psychology with advanced work in organizational behavior, decision analysis, and women’s studies. She has worked with Kent on the social aspects of Extreme Programming since its inception. She is also affiliated with Three Rivers Institute.

0 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The goal of Extreme Programming (XP) is outstanding software development. Software can be developed at lower cost, with fewer defects, with higher productivity, and with much higher return on investment. The same teams that are struggling today can achieve these results by careful attention to and refinement of how they work, by pushing ordinary development practices to the extreme.

There are better ways and worse ways to develop software. Good teams are more alike than they are different. No matter how good or bad your team you can always improve. I intend this book as a resource for you as you try to improve.

This book is my personal take on what it is that good software development teams have in common. I’ve taken things I’ve done that have worked well and things I’ve seen done that worked well and distilled them to what I think is their purest, most “extreme” form. What I’m most struck with in this process is the limitations of my own imagination in this effort. Practices that seemed impossibly extreme five years ago, when the first edition of this book was published, are now common. Five years from now the practices in this book will probably seem conservative.

If I only talked about what good teams do I would be missing the point. There are legitimate differences between outstanding teams’ actions based on the context in which they work. Looking below the surface, where their activities become ripples in the river hinting at shapes below, there is an intellectual and intuitive substrate to software development excellence that I have also tried to distill and document.

Critics of the first edition have complained that it tries to force them to program in a certain way. Aside from the absurdity of me being able to control anyone else’s behavior, I’m embarrassed to say that was my intention. Relinquishing the illusion of control of other people’s behavior and acknowledging each individual’s responsibility for his or her own choices, in this edition I have tried to rephrase my message in a positive, inclusive way. I present proven practices you can add to your bag of tricks.

No matter the circumstance you can always improve.
You can always start improving with yourself.
You can always start improving today.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The goal of Extreme Programming (XP) is outstanding software development. Software can be developed at lower cost, with fewer defects, with higher productivity, and with much higher return on investment. The same teams that are struggling today can achieve these results by careful attention to and refinement of how they work, by pushing ordinary development practices to the extreme.

There are better ways and worse ways to develop software. Good teams are more alike than they are different. No matter how good or bad your team you can always improve. I intend this book as a resource for you as you try to improve.

This book is my personal take on what it is that good software development teams have in common. I’ve taken things I’ve done that have worked well and things I’ve seen done that worked well and distilled them to what I think is their purest, most “extreme” form. What I’m most struck with in this process is the limitations of my own imagination in this effort. Practices that seemed impossibly extreme five years ago, when the first edition of this book was published, are now common. Five years from now the practices in this book will probably seem conservative.

If I only talked about what good teams do I would be missing the point. There are legitimate differences between outstanding teams’ actions based on the context in which they work. Looking below the surface, where their activities become ripples in the river hinting at shapes below, there is an intellectual and intuitive substrate to software development excellence that I have also tried to distill and document.

Critics of the first edition have complained that it tries to force them to program in a certain way. Aside from the absurdity of me being able to control anyone else’s behavior, I’m embarrassed to say that was my intention. Relinquishing the illusion of control of other people’s behavior and acknowledging each individual’s responsibility for his or her own choices, in this edition I have tried to rephrase my message in a positive, inclusive way. I present proven practices you can add to your bag of tricks.

No matter the circumstance you can always improve.
You can always start improving with yourself.
You can always start improving today.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00N1ZN6C0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 2nd edition (November 17, 2004)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 17, 2004
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2117 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 259 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #179,552 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #78 in Software Development (Kindle Store)
- #220 in Microsoft Programming (Books)
- #548 in Programming Languages (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 646 ratings

About the authors

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Cynthia Andres
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Kent Beck
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Kent Beck is the founder and director of Three Rivers Institute (TRI). His career has combined the practice of software development with reflection, innovation, and communication. His contributions to software development include patterns for software, the rediscovery of test-first programming, the xUnit family of developer testing tools, and Extreme Programming. He currently divides his time between writing, programming, and coaching. Beck is the author/co-author of Implementation Patterns, Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition, Contributing to Eclipse, Test-Driven Development: By Example, Planning Extreme Programming, Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, and the JUnit Pocket Guide. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.
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Scott J Pearson

This 2005 work set the direction for software engineering in the last 15 years

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2020

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This book helped change the way that software development is generally practiced, from the leadership to the programmers, from the business to the design. It is important to note that this book has been delivered in two very different editions. The first edition in 1999 set the direction while the second edition in 2005 brought insight out of several years of experience in an updated text.

What’s so “extreme” about Extreme Programming? First, it advocates a practice called “pair programming” – programming in teams of two and sharing the burden of writing and debugging the code. Second, it advocates a heavy use of automated testing and writing those tests at the beginning of a new feature, not at the end. It also advocates the practice of continual integration – making many small deployments instead of one big deployment. This practice, 15 years after publication, is adhered to in most development shops.

What I like most about this book is that it flattens the landscape. Instead of having hierarchies and bureaucracies, it brings responsibility to everyone on the team. This is especially true in my industry, medical research. It’s in touch with the evolving dynamics of the workplace. Careers should not be a race to the top but a continual development of skill. Lean production techniques, concepts of continual improvement, and shared responsibility are all consulted in suggesting how to handle the business of software. The purported results are substantially reduced software defects (i.e., improved quality) and slightly reduced development time (i.e., reduced cost).

While these ideas were cutting-edge in 1999 (and still not widely practiced in 2005), they are expected in most software shops in 2020. Thus, this book is to be consulted as a vestige of history rather than a set of new ideas to implement. It’s still interesting, relevant, and inspirational because of the revolution it sparked. I read this book as a way to think through the practice of test-driven development. It helped me with that practice and continues to catalogue what good software development consists of. Interestingly, these skills have developed into Agile practices and more recent DevOps trends. Writing about these topics should now be consulted for state-of-the-art.

12 people found this helpful

Nice historical reference, but not as relevant as the methodologies that XP spawned (see details)

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2021

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I remember reading a copy of an earlier edition of the Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd Edition (The XP Series) back in the early 2000s. At the time, the book seemed revolutionary amidst my professional work in the waterfall methodology. In my opinion, it was so groundbreaking because it was the first time I'd heard anyone try to manage the software development lifecycle as something other than just another generic project. While there are similarities in software design to other types of custom manufacturing, XP is much better attuned to what makes software design DIFFERENT.

So why three stars?

My company is in the process of a transition to a flavor of agile programming. It was decided that, in an effort to give everyone a common set of concepts and vocabulary, that this book be taught to our entire department. The issue, as I see it, is that as the grandfather of modern agile methodologies, XP is very important. However, as important as understanding how XP came to be is, agile has moved on to more developed/evolved methodologies.

This book does not get you to TDD, or advanced CI/CD. It does not get you to Scrum, LeSS, or Kanban. However, if you want this book as a historical guidepost of "how we got here", I think it's decent.

6 people found this helpful

Recommend Seller

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

Book is in good condition and meets my expectations. Reasonable price. Quick delivery. All around good value and good buying experience. Would buy from vendor again and recommend that others use this vendor as well.

Actually answers some questions about Extreme Programming

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2021

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I found this book quite inspiring, let alone its value for concept explanation. I do not agree with some of the ideas, but this book doesn't try to sell you each and every practice, in my opinion, so it's ok

Michael C. Gamble

I have been a programming hack for many years. ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2017

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I have been a programming hack for many years. This book along with a couple of others that I have read in the last six months or so have opened my eyes. I knew that basics were not my strong suit. I am entirely self-taught with desktop programming. I just knew there were things that didn't seem right. I always had close contact with my customers, knew from early VB experience that you could make a mess of code, that defects could bury a project. XP explained by one of the founders, maybe The Founder just lays it all out. Now still I am a single man shop, so really I am now starting practice on PXP, Personal Extreme Programming, but it will be the only way I practice from here on!

6 people found this helpful

Jose Andres Sanchez

It is still a must read if you nap doing agility

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2021

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Excellent book, if you are not familiar with software you may need someone technician next door. Sometimes it seems to offer unrealistic and inflated results but empirically you will discover the best way

This book isn't too bad, it has a lot of obvious information (ie

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2016

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Required for an XP (Extreme Programming) class. The book was only used for the first three weeks of classes, so I didn't read it in too much depth. This book isn't too bad, it has a lot of obvious information (ie, treat coworkers with respect) and it doesn't offer too much in terms of insight. But despite those issues it's not a bad read, it does have some good information, just nothing ground breaking.

Do not get this book if you're looking for anything ground breaking or anything enlightening, if you're interested in agile development, this book may be worth it to read through however.

2 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2022

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The handbook for XP teams.

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Andrea, Jole, Giugiu e Lilli

Lettura davvero consigliata su uno dei principali framework agili

Reviewed in Italy on April 3, 2021

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Utile ed esauriente trattato sul Extreme Programming. La tesi principale proposta è che non ha senso cercare di fare previsioni che non possono basarsi su niente altro che l'incertezza.
Piuttosto, Kent Beck propone una metodologia che abbraccia i cambiamenti invece di combatterlo.

Gli aspetti principali della metodologia sono:

- pair programming che porta ad una maggiore qualità del codice scritto
- pianificazione flessibile: scegliendo giornalmente ciò che va fatto in base alle priorità del momento
- design for change - non trattare nessuna parte del progetto (comprese le specifiche) come immutabili, essere sempre pronti a modificarli quando necessario,
- il codice è la documentazione e quindi va scritto in modo che possa essere facilmente utilizzato come tali,
- unit test: gli unit test sono uno step essenziale per fornire codice funzionante

Si può essere d'accordo su tutto o su parte dei punti in elenco o altri aspetti del libro. È sicuramente importante prendere coscienza del problema di fondo, la pianificazione fondata sull'incertezza e provare a prendere ragionare, magari prendendo spunto proprio dalle linee guida di XP.

Libro stra-consigliato.

3 people found this helpful

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Marcelo Torres Assis

Um dos melhores

Reviewed in Brazil on June 26, 2023

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Uma das melhores literaturas se você quer levar seu trabalho como engenheiro a outro nível é formar times de alta performance!

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Dan Hoon

The first edition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2005

Verified Purchase

If you already know XP, you perhaps want to know whether to buy this book. I'll try to answer that question.
The first edition of this book marked a watershed in the way I thought about software. I did leave many questions unanswered, however, as our team struggled to implement the practices 'out of the box'. Perhaps a bit too much revolutionary zeal.
The breadth of the second edition is far greater. It explains the principles so that you can adapt them to your own circumstances, without subverting their original intent. As such it is a far more usefull book than the first edition, even if it lacks the bold audacity of the former - or maybe the ideas of XP dont seem so left of field anymore.

15 people found this helpful

Dennis Blondell Decker

Programming for programmers as an extreme method

Reviewed in Germany on September 13, 2019

Verified Purchase

A worthy follow up to the first edition. I read both and feel like you must read both editions to truly understand extreme programming and its premises, but you need the second edition only to change your perspective as a programmer for ever.

Jochen Issing

Great book

Reviewed in Germany on May 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

It is a great and inspiring book for Programmers. It seems a little outdated here and there but makes some very good points that are well applicable in the life of a programmer. I wished to get slightly more practical aspect, but those are not too difficult to catch up with given the information available in the internet. All in all, I would highly recommend this book for any programmer.

2 people found this helpful

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