Three Branches Of Government

I came up with this analogy for XP in the car this morning. See what you think:

XP can be considered as a three-branch government, with checks and balances. The programmers are like the congressional branch, actually producing the legislation or programs. The customers are like the judicial branch, making sure what the programmers do fits in with everything else, that it does what its suppose to and it isn't 'unconstitutional' (some thing the customers don't want or need). The management is like the executive branch, suggesting things for the programmer to do, dealing with foreign policy and holding veto power. This seems to work reasonably well for governing, so it makes sense that it would work for programming.

-- BethanyAndresBeck

What's a congressional branch? Is that like a legislative branch? The mysteries of the American political system confound me to this day. Where do the People come into play?

Come on, take it easy on Bethany. The Congress of the United States is the Legislative branch of the American government. The following link http://www.miscoe.com/~dhoule/constitution.htm lets you see the entire constitution, which (without amendments) is only 31K. Should be easy enough to read and understand in a few minutes, right? Considering that we haven't significantly changed our political system in the past 200 years, that should clear things up immensely. :) -- KyleBrown

Aside: If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con', what's the opposite of 'progress'?

Someone has to pay the taxes. I think that is where we come in.

Actually, I think that the Customers are more like Congress - they define WHAT needs to be done as story cards (laws) but they don't actually do things. The programmers are the executive branch, which is charged with actually doing something based on what the laws say. The judicial branch, to me at least, is more like the coach or consultant, who helps the executive branch figure out what the legislative branch meant. -- KyleBrown

The judicial branch is the acceptance tests, QA, all that stuff. The Presidential veto and any oversight committees on the process are the unit tests.