Extreme Programming Pocket Guide

By chromatic and Shane Warden

Book Overview

Extreme Programming (XP) is a radical new approach to software development that has been accepted quickly because its core practices--the need for constant testing, programming in pairs, inviting customer input, and the communal ownership of code--resonate with developers everywhere. Although many developers feel that XP is rooted in commonsense, its vastly different approach can bring challenges, frustrations, and constant demands on your patience. Unless you've got unlimited time (and who does these days?), you can't always stop to thumb through hundreds of pages to find the piece of information you need. The Extreme Programming Pocket Guide is the answer. Concise and easy to use, this handy pocket guide to XP is a must-have quick reference for anyone implementing a test-driven development environment. The Extreme Programming Pocket Guide covers XP assumptions, principles, events, artifacts, roles, and resources, and more. It concisely explains the relationships between the XP practices. If you want to adopt XP in stages, the Extreme Programming Pocket Guide will help you choose what to apply and when. You'll be surprised at how much practical information is crammed into this slim volume. O'Reilly's Pocket Guides have become a favorite among developers everywhere. By providing a wealth of important details in a concise, well-organized format, these handy books deliver just what you need to complete the task at hand. When you've reached a sticking point in your work and need to get to a solution quickly, the new Extreme Programming Pocket Guide is the book you'll want to have beside your keyboard.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596004850
• ISBN13: 9780596004859
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 90 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.6" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

XP Programming Starts Here!

This guide is very concise & straight to the point. Do not be fool by its size. Team and project managers along with business analysts should find this guide very useful. This pocket book is an easy read that packs enough meat to get you going with Extreme Programming. It is written for anyone who is interested on knowing about XP. By the end of the book you'll have a clear understanding of why use XP programming, practices, events, roles, code principles & style. Best of all, it provides you with clear examples and suggestions on how to adopt this methodology.

Quick and dirty review

I bought this book as a desktop refresher on XP practices. It does that just fine. If you are looking for an in depth book, you need to go elsewhere. This is a reference guide to use as a refresher from time to time on how to implement XP practices.

Concise Intro to XP

I needed a break recently, so I pulled this tiny work off the stack of review books (now 30 books high) and blasted through it in a short hour. It's short, sweet, to the point, also injected with the occasional XP Dogma Line such as if you don't implement all 12 practices then you're not doing real XP and your manhood will shrivel or your womb will be barren. I get tired of that line, but the rest of the book is truely golden. It's concise and lays out great sections on why one should consider XP, roles in XP, artifiacts, and a few others. The real wealth is the section on XP practices where the 12 tenets are laid out in concise, reasonable fashion. These practices are clear and understandable without a bunch of mystical handwaving or badly-written example scenarios I've suffered through in a couple other XP books. (Roodyn's Extreme .NET comes to mind as a painful example of that.) The book's conciseness and focus makes it a perfect tool if you're trying to sell XP to your management, team, or co-workers.

great summary, ties together complex topics from best sources

I think this book should be required reading for anyone exploring XP. I introduced XP into a research lab of a dozen students and professionals, using the original books as reference. However, things would have gone much more smoothly had I simply read the pocket guide. Excellent!

Very good concise guide...

In today's world of tech books that are hundreds of pages long, it's nice to see a short, "no fluff" guide to a subject that is actually usable. This book fills that bill nicely.Even if you've read about and implemented XP in your shop, there are times you need to review one of the points about how it all works together. Since the author covers all the main points of XP, you can quickly find the information you need. You also get a nice cross-reference at the end of each chapter that shows how each point relies on other parts of the methodology. I find this very useful if you are faced with having to modify XP for your use. It's recommended that you implement XP in its entirety, as it's meant to be more than the sum of its part. But if you have to tweak something, you know how it will affect the other areas.I would not recommend this book as your only resource if you were just starting to implement XP. You really need to read Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck. He's the founder of XP, and that book goes into much more detail as to the whys of the process. But this book is one that each member of the team should have to keep the concepts fresh.This is a very good book to use as a supplemental reference or reminder guide if you're using the XP methodology. If you were looking for a concise explanation of XP, this would also work for you. If you were looking for a more in-depth explanation of the methodology, I would recommend one of the books by Kent Beck.