The XP Manifesto: More Cheesy Puffs, Comrade?

The original XP book, Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck, has been described as a manifesto. ^[12] It sets out the philosophy and tenets of XP in a relatively high-level and nontechnical way (as compared with most other software methodology books, which usually drill down to the more specific core process). This is an apt description of a process that s more concerned with the way that people work together than with specific design issues.

For more about Beck s plan to change the social contract of working, see the section That s the Customer s Problem in Chapter 5.

 

It s interesting that Beck s microtome should be described in this way, because in many ways XP represents a political manifesto: a way to increase the power of the minions, the workers, whilst unloading the real responsibility of the project delivery onto the customer. It s a masterful plan.

Why is XP so much admired? There may be many answers to this, but a key may lie in its radicalism and revolutionary appeal for equality. Programmers work directly with users to specify, design, and test systems, so they answer to no higher authority. ^[13]

The Extremos appear to have adopted a Marxist-Leninist role in the industry, of demanding power for the proletariat programmers in their endless struggle with bourgeois management.

We touch on Marxist philosophy again in Chapter 11, albeit in the context of a different Marx.

 

Karl Marx  

Power to the Peeps

I was recently interviewing a programmer for a potential contract, and he happened to mention that he had worked on a project in which his team had attempted XP (but found it too difficult for various-reasons ”in particular, that management wouldn t buy in to the new way of working. Eventually they abandoned the experiment [which it quickly became known as], keeping unit tests but not much else).

I asked him what he most liked about XP, and he immediately perked up with, It empowers the programmers! Puts us on an equal footing with the management. . . .

^[12] See http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?CritiqueOfXpxec .

^[13] Ian Alexander, Book Review: Extreme Programming Explained, http://i.f.alexander.users.btopenworld.com/reviews/beck.htm, October 2000.