System Development - Extreme Programming!

Extreme Programming is an evolving methodology that was created by an Object Oriented developer by the name of Kent Beck. In the simplest form, Extreme Programming development is a methodology that is based on simplicity, communication and feedback. Extreme programming is based around the customer of the system, this person works with the development team during the whole development process.

Extreme Programming works becase it brings the entire development team together, as a group the development team follows a set of simple practices that encourage feedback so that the entire group can work forward on their particular project together. One of the biggest problems in software development is scope creep. Almost all IT programmers, designers, project managers are familiar with how scope creep works and sneaks up on a project. With Extreme Programming, scope is watched very carefully.

With Extreme Programming there are small releases of code that are produced along the way to the final project development. This means that management or the customer can choose what features that they want or need with different releases of the software. With each release of the software, the project is completed, tested and approved. This allows the customer to fine tune the project along the way, adjust the project accordingly. Even though you are watching scope, this development methodology, Extreme Programming, allows the scope to adjust along the way to the project development.

Extreme Programming relies heavily on the development team, management and the customer collaborating together and communicating. This type of programming methodology allows programmers and developers to work in groups. This allows for prorammers to correlate with each other and work rapidly.

In fact in many Extreme Programming scenarios you would find a group of programmers working on a project; walk into a room and find two programmers sitting at each computer, correlating together working together coding and solving the problems collaborating together and working faster. Extreme Programming allows programmers to get constant feedback from managers and the customers of the project, this allows the programmers to program what is needed as it is needed rather than spending time up-front trying to design a system and then realizing into the project that the original scope of the project is not really what was needed, and then have to plan again to change the scope. Extreme Programming allows the scope of the project to change accordingly with the project along the way, allowing the programmers to do what they do best, program.

In the most simple of forms, Extreme Programmers follows this cycle:

Plan > Code > Test > Plan > Code > Test

There are 12 basic rules of Extreme Programming, they are: