From: Andrew Gabb (agabb@tpgi.com.au)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 10:20:16 EST
P. Grant Rule wrote:
> In any case, I understood that the purpose of pair-programming in XP was to
> take the idea of peer review to the eXtreme precisely in order to generate
> high quality, defect free software (so far as that is possible)... and I
> think this is a jolly good wheeze.
Put that way, it is (and I've seen it represented like that too). However, I like to look at pair programming as a poor man's formal inspections, where you still get some improvement in quality (over single programming and no inspections) in a cost/time effective way. In some ways, the approach (which was not invented with XP) may also have some real advantages, in that it does some 'inspection' very early, more or less on the fly. My biggest concern about PP is getting it working in the first place, ie developing a culture and selecting and managing staff who will actually do it in the spirit in which it is intended.
> If, as you note, 'agile methods have been successful... where software
> projects generally are successful' ... are they more or less efficient,
> effective, efficacious, elegant and ethical? If they're not, what benefits
> DO they provide?
Speed of delivery, at the expense of quality (including maintainability). The point I was making was that XP is not some silver bullet that is likely to sweep the software industry (although it is attractive to hackers, until they try it), because it is fairly limited in its applicability. Instead, it's an approach that is probably useful in some situations. I'd certainly consider it for the types of applications that its advocates have experienced.
I have actually found the XP 'phenomenon' rather useful in advancing SwE. I don't like the hype that has characterised its promotion (more than average, IMO), nor some of the claims made by its less moderate (and experienced) advocates, but I think it has a niche. In other words, I certainly don't see it as the future of SwE, but I do see it as part of that future.
Andrew
-- Andrew Gabb email: agabb@tpgi.com.au Adelaide, South Australia phone: +61 8 8342-1021, fax: +61 8 8269-3280 ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To send a message to this mailing list send it to re-online@it.uts.edu.au. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, email majordomo@it.uts.edu.au with the message `unsubscribe re-online' in the BODY of the mail.
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