Summary

Debates concerning documentation in XP tend to confuse requirements documentation with design documentation. XP s approach to requirements documentation is marginally better than its approach to design documentation. However, the transition from requirements to design (via coded or scripted acceptance tests) can be a murky one.

As we discussed in the section Tailoring a Process to Local Conditions: Why XP Stands on Its Head in Chapter 3, XP has lots of guidance about how to organize teams that are trying to get from requirements to code, but it offers little guidance in terms of a logical process detailing precisely how to do this. It is possible that this is because XP s design process only really kicks in properly once you have existing code.

We cover XP s design process in the next chapter.