The biggest problem you will notice is that the authors tried to inject humor and satire. They failed and added plenty of hate and malice instead. As I read the book I found so much of it was just not well founded with facts.
Consider the source of so much of their information, the C2wiki. This is a discussion group! People who have no knowledge of Extreme Programming make outrageous statements and they are quoted in this book. Furthermore that discussion group's format is such that any comment can be changed by anyone. I noticed a mistake while reading this book so I went over to the source at C2.com and changed it! That is how fragile the so called facts are that this book is based on.
Much of this book is based on projects that neither Matt nor Doug actually participated in. It isn't hard to imagine that they get the facts wrong.
One would expect from the name of this book that Matt and Doug will tell us ways to change XP to meet problems that are faced on projects. There is only a very thin section of a couple pages that deals with this. Almost the entire book is devoted to showing that XP should not work.
Then Matt describes a project he runs using XP and guess what? It works! He uses the core of XP with a couple peripheral changes. He changes the twice per day integration to once per day. He scales back on pair programming. He uses use cases instead of user stories. He spends extra time creating design documents. The core of XP is still intact and it works.
How to refactor XP should have been the focus of this book. What ideas can you take from XP that will help your project now? What can you change from standard XP and still survive? Do you need a book that is 50% song lyrics, 45% misquotes, and only 5% useful information?
One thing that is continually reinforced by the example projects in this book is that XP is very different from traditional processes and you must understand the differences to do well with XP. You can not learn anything about XP from this book because it promotes and glorifies a misunderstanding of what makes XP work. There are now two ways to develop software and a good understanding of both and when to use one or the other is vital information. You won't get that from this book because the authors chose a format that isn't informative.
If you want some good satire you should read Mr. Bunny's Big Cup O' Java. If you want to learn something about Extreme Programming get a different book.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
About the author
