Xp Isa Collective Idea

"I give you ExtremeProgramming as an example of a CollectiveIdea."

-- SunirShah on the role of Wiki in CollectiveIntelligence

This was later retracted.

How about we delete the page then?

I know what you mean, but isn't it equally true to say that KentBeck gave us ExtremeProgramming as one of the most outstanding marketing coups by an individual JustaProgrammer ever seen. I speak with my business person's hat on so that's intended as a considerable compliment. Wiki is also great in the way it allows such individual achievements to flower.

-- RichardDrake

I would if I agreed. I don't think XP was KentBeck's work alone. And I definitely don't think it was any sort of marketing coup, let alone one of the most outstanding ones because it hasn't succeeded yet. When ROSE falls, I'll be impressed.

-- SunirShah

I said one of the most outstanding marketing coups by an individual JustaProgrammer.

(And wasn't that a fine example of crystal clear WikiGrammar)

Now as I see it Rose is marketed by marketing experts, and the problem is that there aren't enough RealSoftwareExperts involved (I take it you agree). Wiki provided the means for one key individual to hit back against such trends - and get some incredible, heartfelt help from across the world. The term ExtremeProgramming and what it originally stood for were clearly Kent's. That really matters - not least where he was wrong! - and it comes across strongly on Wiki.

To cite an interesting parallel, at least to me, it was clear to me in 1982, in reading about Smalltalk for the first time, that the term "object", coined by the programmers Nygaard and Dahl in 1967 and taken up by Kay in 1970, represented a breakthrough clarifying concept. It was thus already a key marketing term that would become very important for much of commercial software development. That's why I took the trouble of founding ObjectiveComputerSystems the following year, the first software company to specialize in commercial application of object-oriented programming in Europe. (Is that called PuttingYourMoneyWhereYourMouthIs? across the pond? Or possibly where your madness is? Anyway.)

It just took the rest of the industry a little longer to pick up on the trend than I expected.

I also realized in 1995 that Java was likely to be the vehicle for a lot of our object implementations in the near future rather than Smalltalk, again for marketing reasons. Now I believe that with ParcPlace out the way, if Disney make the right moves with SqueakSmalltalk what we've learnt about XP with manifestly typed languages may initiate a gradual comeback for Smalltalk funnily enough. So go for it, SmalltalkAdvocacy!

I know that I can be wrong, very wrong, on the details and the timing of such things. But for what it's worth I feel the same way about ExtremeProgramming now as I did about objects in 1983.

Another way of saying that perhaps is "I agree with you" on XP being a CollectiveIdea (would have been quicker, huh?). But only if you agree with me on it already having been successfully marketed. Isn't that what successful marketing does: take a term that belongs to one person or a few and transform it into something that seems to - maybe in a real sense really does - belong to many?

My main interest though is my belief that it is always inspired, passionate individuals that change things - with the help of the communities that form around them. Wiki hasn't changed this. It's just made it much more powerful.

-- RichardDrake

For what it's worth, I've changed my mind. I don't think XP is a very good example of a CollectiveIdea because it was outright mentioned by an individual like you said. A CollectiveIdea is more like a subtext, something between the lines. An emergent notion. It may be mentioned outright, but only after it has fully evolved. WardAndKent and Ron and others developed XP long before Wiki came about. XP may have been a CollectiveIdea from beforehand, but I don't have enough data to draw conclusions. -- ss

As I understand it Wiki came first, then the advice to Chrysler to spend some time refactoring their Smalltalk code from MartinFowler (which they ignored), then Kent's arrival in Detroit six months later, his coining of the term ExtremeProgramming for a curious collection of programming principles and practices to try and save that project, then the arrival of Ron to become the first XP coach. Finally Wiki becomes a very handy megaphone both to tell the world of the success of XP at C3 and to refine its definition for everywhere else.

The handy megaphone to tell the world of the success of a single project is pretty much taken verbatim from the first few, typically gracious words that I had the pleasure of listening to from WardCunningham (on the telephone last year). Have I got the chronology right otherwise?

As for how Kent came up with that curious collection of programming principles and practices, ... well that's another story.

See HistoryOfExtremeProgramming

-- RichardDrake