Xp Owl
Xp OwlWe are a ThreeManTeam? building a MultimediaAuthoringSystem? using ExtremeProgramming and the JavaLanguage.
We work for PanasonicOwl and are ExtremeProgrammingInEnemyTerritory.
We'll let you know how it goes. :-)
--AndrewSwan, TimAllen, AlanFrancis, MalcolmGroom?
( Alan has left for XpSferics? and Malcolm has just left. Now AndrewSwan and TimAllen (and introducing RobParsons?) carry on the good work ! )
How do you manage pair programming :-) or are you ProgrammingInThrees? ? --ChanningWalton
Well at the moment we aren't :-) We've started with UserStory's (on cards), UnitTest(s), and refactoring (mercilessly). We just had our fourth guy join the project (who's never done Java or heard of XP - we like a challenge :).
After reading EmbraceChange we have plans to move our desks and rearrange our workspace to facilitate PairProgramming. We plan to try it out until the course in December (so's we've some intelligent questions to ask :-).
We're adopting the practices piecemeal at the moment (it's only a small project) but reading EmbraceChange has clued us up that the SpacePlan? and PairProgramming are the most important things to get right. So off we go :-)
-- AlanFrancis
Okay.
We've been PairProgramming for two weeks now and our productivity has been incredible. As I said, the team haven't really been working together for very long so I can't really say for sure whether we've sped up. What I do know is in our first week we each signed up for tasks to take us all the way through our TwoWeekIteration? (more on that later) and we were done by Thursday. Two weeks into 4 days.
We're not a development company, we're an R&D lab, so we've made some changes to the "Letter of the Law" in EmbraceChange, but hey, "TheyreJustRules".
Our desks are arranged differently (pic to follow) as we each need some time at our own PC (for pursuing other research unrelated to the ExtremeProject we're working on. We have moved them to facilitate PairProgramming, but we each still have our own desk, which our partner comes and sits at while we do our tasks. Also, since we need time to do other things, we Pair-Program for our core hours (10-12 and 2-4) outside of that time, we can do what we like (personal projects, playing Quake, writing on Wiki etc :-) but in those four hours a day, we have four hours of PerfectEngineeringTime?... ( Kent, we plan to chat to you about this in Chicago... how does this affest our LoadFactor calculations ) We don't answer the phone, we tell people to go away, we turn off our email beeps.
So although were only working half the day, I think we get more useful work done in those four hours than we ever got when we spent the whole day trying to get 5 minutes of real engineering time...
More news as it happens....
Kwik Pics now available: http://www.geocities.com/twelve71/workspace/
Basically we're each at a corner of a rectangle, with Tim and Malcolm along one wall and Andy and I along another. We each are facing away from the other when we're doing our own thing. Between each pair of desks there's an empty table. This allows two people to get round each of our four machines (and still have space to put stuff :-) More detailed description when I get round to it.
Great stuff! Can't wait to hear more about how things are going - you have an excellent start! BTW, the XNF quote in the shrine is from MichaelFeathers. I wish I had written it, and I bet Kent does too. --RonJeffries
As I mentioned, we're having to modify XP for our research-environment, but Andy and I hope to have a lot of coach-type questions for you and Kent when we see you in Chicago :-)
Well, we're just back from XpImmersionOne in Chicago. What an amazing experience. I plan to write up how I think what we learned will impact what we've done so far on XpOwl. More news as it happens :-)
Our project has been temporarily shelved as we have no customer to give us requirements, so the team has been split to lend a hand on other projects until mid march. We should then be in a position to recommence XpOwl... for the moment we're each just ExtremeProgrammingForOne
We've now got a set of requirements, although we don't have a proper customer yet (don't ask), so we've been doing the Xp thing for the past month. Alan left last week (Gone, but not forgotten ;-) --AlanFrancis) so we're back to three programmers as mentioned above. We're trying to have one pair programming and the other guy doing a small task or two on their own until there is someone to pair up with. So far it's working, but then again, we've only been working like this for two days....
--TimAllen
How's it going guys ? We're going great guns here with a RealCustomer? (tm) :-)
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