In Closing


So, just what is XP useful for? XP is mostly suited to maintenance projects. In fact, it could have been tailor-made for projects that have legacy code being used in production environments but that have a fresh set of requirements waiting to be somehow shoehorned in. XP s refactoring approach and emphasis on after-the-event code quality is a good approach to such a scenario.

There are plenty of reports (e.g., in IEEE Software magazine) of projects under way that have adopted XP partially (but never in full, strangely), after at least one customer release has been made.

For all other projects, however, XP isn t the most efficient way to do it. And it s certainly not the most scalable software process on the block.

XP is still evolving, and we hope that this book will help to drive XP to a better-place. It may be that another software process will take XP s place, or XP itself may evolve to correct its many flaws. If XP could lose the Zen-esque mumbo jumbo that surrounds it, and not require great organizational change to be effective, and not be quite so extreme, and appeal less to the hack-and-whack crowd by placing a (much) greater emphasis on effective up-front design techniques, precode HCI design, and requirements elicitation methods , then we would feel like our job here is done and we can now safely retire to a small island in the South Pacific and spend the rest of our days throwing pebbles at small crabs. But we suspect that day is a long, long way off yet.

XP isn t about hack and whackery, but it seems to appeal more than other software processes to the hack-and-whack crowd. With that in mind, we d like to leave you with these parting thoughts.

You Can t Always Hack All You Want

(Sing to the tune of You Can t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones)

I found a pink slip in my mailbox
The letters were printed in gray
It was a note from the gold owner
And here s what he had to say

You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want

Cause if you look sometimes
You might find
That change isn t free

You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want

You say that there is no real schedule
It does not exist per se
You say there are no fixed-price contracts
And at five PM you must go play

You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want
You can t always hack all you want

But folks might try sometimes
And you might find
They call it XP




Extreme Programming Refactored
Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP
ISBN: 1590590961
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 156

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