Fitness Isnt Linear Either

from ExtremeDiscipline:

I don't see why doing the XP discipline should make anyone tired - but I observe that it does. It's not like BurnOut, I've been there and done that. But it's "a little tired". Maybe people need a change --RonJeffries

We were talking last week about how the XP tiredness factor could be a very good sign - implying that XP is indeed a discipline in its own right, quite different from other kinds of programming disciplines.

When I was a student at the University of Kent, I had the good fortune to practice karate with WayneOtto? who held the World Champion ('sparring') title for nine years. He's a supremely fit individual. Meanwhile, my brother and I were preparing for the student national championships in the synchronized 'forms' section. Our third team member was finding difficulty in making time for practice. Wayne decided that he could take over the position. He very quickly picked up the new discipline but after half an hour of practicing he found a chair, sat down heavily and declared that forms demanded a completely different kind of fitness. Certainly my brother and I find training with him in his own discipline extremely tiring.

We feel this analogy may help to explain, perhaps in a more sympathetic way than ExtremeParadigmShift, why some really fit commercial programmers can't cope with XP. A entirely new kind of fitness when you're already at full stretch in another, perhaps less effective discipline is .. understandably frightening. --RichardDrake/LanceWalton (the fit one)