Why Is It Called Extreme

Why is it called Extreme -- ThinkingOutLoud DonaldNoyes 20071020

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If one is to apply Extreme Methodologies, it would be well to note in what way it is extreme and what advantage one might gain by its employment.

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Some questions which might help in discovering why is it called Extreme:

Is it Extreme because it :

• is different?
• depends upon high levels of skill and experience belonging to those who propose it and those who practice it?
• breaks new ground or employs bleeding edge technology?
• ignores generally accepted approaches or expands and amplifies them?
• has no original strict plan or original strict roadmap?
• owns and changes its schedule?
• promises frequent interim releases?
• responds immediately to changes in requirements with adaptations tested to meet them?
• is a radical departure from normal SoftwareDevelopment?

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Some answers and developments:

It takes practices further than before

By analogy with the HistoryOfExtremeProgramming's "turn all the knobs to ten", perhaps a practice is extreme when you take it further than it's previously been practiced. For example, rather than working toward a handful of alpha and beta test milestones, you practice SmallReleases. Rather than integrate weekly, you practice ContinuousIntegration. Rather than periodic code reviews, you practice PairProgramming.

Indeed. An un-cited entry on Wikipedia suggests it's called "Extreme" because it "takes 'best practices' to extreme levels." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming

It borrows the term from "Extreme Sports" to attract the young

My suspicion is that it borrowed "extreme" from the "extreme sports" movement as a buzzword gimmick to attract young people to the movement.

Naw. XP didn't just borrow from "extreme sports"; it is an extreme sport: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming.

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The term has been so over used by marketing that it is rapidly loosing meaning. I saw an Extreme Toothpaste at the grocery store. The same store was holding and Extreme Sale (the mark-down was 25%. Now, maybe 25% was extreme for this particular store, but it certainly wasn't extreme in context of normal sales.) It is a term addopted by the X and/or Y Generations. They are the prime buyers, now, so marketers have gone overboard using the Extreme label to get their attention. -- BrucePennington

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CategoryExtremeProgrammingDiscussion