Experience Without Abstraction

The ExtremeProgrammingMaster learns to ExperienceWithoutAbstraction, Just as he can AccomplishWithoutAction; He accepts the ebb and flow of UserStories, Nurtures them, but does not own them, And lives, but does not dwell.

Very nice! And very interesting -- See EwaDiscussion.

Very interesting, evocative and thought-provoking, Peter, but I'm a bit concerned by the association of these notions with XP. I'm sure that some are very consistent with XP ... but I'm also concerned that these patterns may not be what underlies our work. Can you help me get comfortable with seeing a description like this of what an ExtremeProgrammingMaster does/feels/thinks/is ... when no XPM could likely have written it? Thanks! --RonJeffries

Yo Ron! I'm trying to go very slow with the ExtremeHarmony stuff and I regard the link to XP as tentative. Still, if the comments that XPerts let remain for so long on the WuWei page are right, then I think there's grounds to think the ExtremeHarmony direction might yield some valuable insight.

As to what an ExtremeProgrammingMaster does/feels/thinks/is ... I think I have a poem for that occasion. I'll plop it on the XPM page and see what you think. --PeterMerel

These are fascinating and I'd like to keep seeing them. But putting XP words in them troubles me, because they don't seem to me always to be describing what I am and do when I am and do Extreme. --RonJeffries

That's the price of being famous, Ron... You'll know you're there when they start making bawdy ditties about you :-) --AlistairCockburn

One side, lemmee through, I got it, I got it:

 As TheCoach, the extremist RonJeffries
 Paired with every staff member of C3's,
 But when he felt lonely
 He'd OnceAndOnceOnly
 Screaming "YAGNI!" and "RefactorMercilessly!"

As to using the XP words, I'm really interested in the distinctions Ron sees, and hope he'll explain them here. --PeterMerel

I just mean that I feel that these poems are nice, and sort of on target, but sort of not. They're aiming at something, but to the extent that they are written by folks who don't get XP yet, I'm concerned that they'll be taken as definitive when maybe they aren't. Anyway, don't mind me, mind your scanning. ;->

Yeah, the scansion's off, but I couldn't resist the image of you screaming "YAGNI!" at just that perfect moment :-) I guess the danger is that by this playing around I'll make XP harder to grok; but then this is wiki, not www.xp.org, so I feel justified in doing some extrapolating. And anyway there should be a www.xp.org. --PeterMerel

Fer sure, fer sure. Enjoy, I do! and xp.everythingButZimbabwe is taken.

xpert.org is free

CategoryAbstraction

This always happens to me when I try to tell a story of something that happened to me -- it was funny at the time but many of the features that made it funny don't make it through to my story, so it ends up less amusing than when I experienced it.

Actually I did make something of this eventually - it morphed into the TaoOfExtremeProgramming. Delete/refactor as you see fit. I still like the limerick though. -- Pete.