Extreme Dogma

Assumption of an automatic imprimatur for any combination of arbitrary words appended to Extreme to form a WikiName.

Candidate antidote pages might look something like:

The serious point is that pages like NonlinearityOfXp make a sufficiently important claim for ExtremeProgramming that it is worth working hard to preserve the focus and integrity of the Extreme label - and doing everything possible to verify the claims.

I think NonlinearityOfXp is a great name for a vital discussion (I've made some refactoring suggestions somewhere near the current end point but only because of the importance of the claims at the beginning). I love the ExtremeProgramming label, the values and the whole direction of the discussion on Wiki. I'm concerned though about trying to extend the Extreme label too far into all kinds of Process issues, what I might call DifficultEarlyStageTechnologyChoices? (what a lot of firms I think pretentiously and unhelpfully call architecture), Negotiation, Contracts and areas when there may not be the same level of real confidence or indeed originality as the many months of C3 have given on the core programming practices.

I know it isn't easy to draw the line, because RealSuccessIsAlwaysHolistic?. But please, no more of those midnight calls from OfficialXpPersonnel! I'll never do it again, I promise.

I also wanted to have a play with expressing some semi-serious thoughts just using WikiNames rather than having the bother of fleshing out the pages in question. The fact that ExtremeStupidity? is syntactically possible is a warning of sorts. --RichardDrake

Okay, I got it. Thanks for the fleshing-out. I agree completely with your sentiments and cautions! -- MichaelHill

Have you all noticed that the word "extreme" has become the flavor of the month outside of the programming community? Every time I turn around I see a new product with the word extreme tied into its marketing.

It reminds me to dig out two quotes from the book Orthodoxy by GkChesterton (who clearly decided how to identify himself before WikiNames had been discovered). One's all about extremes and the second I realised talking to NickKnowles the other day was all about Wiki - see GkChestertonOnWiki. --RichardDrake

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