Mailing List Archive

Extreme Programming ( XP ) in python ?
Dear All,
I recently attended the OT99 conference at Oxford University.
One of the highlights was the inspiring keynote speech by Kent Beck
on his experiences with Extreme Programming ( XP ) .
( ref: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExtremeProgrammingRoadmap )
Unfortunately, he was using Java as his particular language vehicle,
but that is not mandatory.
It would seem to me that XP and python is a marriage made in heaven.
Has anyone on this list had any experiences with XP on their projects?

David

PS as a side-note, despite this being primarily a practitioners conference,
there didn't seem to be much awareness of python at the conference,
despite my dropping it into any conversation I could. It would seem that
Java IS making in-roads, despite reservations.

PPS It would also seem that XML is starting to get linked with CORBA very
productively by passing content-rich strings. ( perhaps this is old news ? )


________________________________________________________________________________

************************************************
* David Dench *
* The University of Huddersfield , UK *
* Tel: 01484 472083 *
* email: d.j.dench@hud.ac.uk *
************************************************
________________________________________________________________________________
Extreme Programming ( XP ) in python ? [ In reply to ]
Dave Dench wrote:
>
> Dear All,
> I recently attended the OT99 conference at Oxford University.
> One of the highlights was the inspiring keynote speech by Kent Beck
> on his experiences with Extreme Programming ( XP ) .
> ( ref: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExtremeProgrammingRoadmap )
> Unfortunately, he was using Java as his particular language vehicle,
> but that is not mandatory.
> It would seem to me that XP and python is a marriage made in heaven.
> Has anyone on this list had any experiences with XP on their projects?

Given that XP is originally a Smalltalk methodology (Beck is one of the
uber-gurus of the Smalltalk world), it can't be very wedded to Java. I was
employing a semi-heretical[*] version of XP in most of my consulting work
(C++/Delphi/Java) when I found Python: DING!

[*] I don't quite hold with "you're not gonna need it!", which taints my
orthodoxy. :)

> PPS It would also seem that XML is starting to get linked with CORBA very
> productively by passing content-rich strings. ( perhaps this is old news ? )

XML does provide an interesting, "Pythonesqu" alternative to CORBA's (new)
object-by-value feature: passing self-describing objects as strings, rather than
as "valutypes," trades off compile-time typechecks for a reduction in the
dependency jitter. There are some downsides, however: the reduction in
encapsulation can make for headaches.


--
=========================================================
Tres Seaver tseaver@palladion.com 713-523-6582
Palladion Software http://www.palladion.com