Kent Becks Change Cost Xp Article

WhosWritingAboutXp -- an ExtremeArticle:

On KentBeck's, "ExtremeProgramming: Flatten the change-cost curve by using XP in project planning and testing" article in C++ Report (CppReport) -- May 1999, Volume 11/Number 5, Pages 26 to 29, and page 44.

See http://www.creport.com/archive/9905/html/from_pages/feature.shtml [BrokenLink]

http://web.archive.org/web/20050215083840/http://adtmag.com/joop/crarticle.asp?ID=1559 too

This one seems to work, but the figures are missing...

Issue #1: Eliminating functionality does not disprove the exponential cost-of-change curve.

DisablingFunctionalityIsNotaChange

Issue #2: You didn't really KNOW that the change was safe.

TestsCantProveTheAbsenceOfBugs

So true, they can't. Consider two new airframes. The one on the left has flown 10,000 hours of tests. At the beginning, it crashed a lot. Lately, it hasn't crashed at all. The one on the right hasn't been tested. You need to get home from this desert island. Which one will you ride in? Justify your answer. -- RonJeffries

On the other hand, the article did get me thinking about this:

What if our attempts over the years, to improve productivity and make software more maintainable... were successful? If they were, we should expect some change to software development economics.

-- JeffGrigg

Congratulations, KentBeck and the XP team, on the article in CppReport. I was impressed by RobertMartin's editorial comments: "...it may represent one of the most unique contributions to software development since DesignPatterns". I hope this leads to a new wave of pragmatic methodologies, and a return to the source. -- ScottJohnston

CategoryExtremeProgramming