“In this second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck organizes and presents five years’ worth of experiences, growth, and change revolving around XP. If you are seriously interested in understanding how you and your team can start down the path of improvement with XP, you must read this book.”

—Francesco Cirillo, Chief Executive Officer, XPLabs S.R.L. “The first edition of this book told us what XP was—it changed the way many of us think about software development. This second edition takes it farther and gives us a lot more of the ‘why’ of XP, the motivations and the principles behind the practices. This is great stuff. Armed with the ‘what’ and the ‘why,’ we can now all set out to confidently work on the ‘how’: how to run our projects better, and how to get agile techniques adopted in our organizations.”

—Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers LLC “This book is dynamite! It was revolutionary when it first appeared a few years ago, and this new edition is equally profound. For those who insist on cookbook checklists, there’s an excellent chapter on ‘primary practices,’ but I urge you to begin by truly contemplating the meaning of the opening sentence in the first chapter of Kent Beck’s book: ‘XP is about social change.’ You should do whatever it takes to ensure that every IT professional and every IT manager—all the way up to the CIO—has a copy of Extreme Programming Explained on his or her desk.”

—Ed Yourdon, author and consultant “XP is a powerful set of concepts for simplifying the process of software design, development, and testing. It is about minimalism and incrementalism, which are especially useful principles when tackling complex problems that require a balance of creativity and discipline.”

—Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of The Business of Software “Extreme Programming Explained is the work of a talented and passionate craftsman. Kent Beck has brought together a compelling collection of ideas about programming and management that deserves your full attention. My only beef is that our profession has gotten to a point where such common-sense ideas are labeled ‘extreme.’...”

—Lou Mazzucchelli, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council “If your organization is ready for a change in the way it develops software, there’s the slow incremental approach, fixing things one by one, or the fast track, jumping feet first into Extreme Programming. Do not be frightened by the name, it is not that extreme at all. It is mostly good old recipes and common sense, nicely integrated together, getting rid of all the fat that has accumulated over the years.”

—Philippe Kruchten, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia “Sometimes revolutionaries get left behind as the movement they started takes on a life of its own. In this book, Kent Beck shows that he remains ahead of the curve, leading XP to its next level. Incorporating five years of feedback, this book takes a fresh look at what it takes to develop better software in less time and for less money. There are no silver bullets here, just a set of practical principles that, when used wisely, can lead to dramatic improvements in software development productivity.”

—Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit “Kent Beck has revised his classic book based on five more years of applying and teaching XP. He shows how the path to XP is both easy and hard: It can be started with fewer practices, and yet it challenges teams to go farther than ever.”

—William Wake, independent consultant “With new insights, wisdom from experience, and clearer explanations of the art of Extreme Programming, this edition of Beck’s classic will help many realize the dream of outstanding software development.”

—Joshua Kerievsky, author of Refactoring to Patterns and Founder, Industrial Logic, Inc. “XP has changed the way our industry thinks about software development. Its brilliant simplicity, focused execution, and insistence on fact-based planning over speculation have set a new standard for software delivery.”

—David Trowbridge, Architect, Microsoft Corporation Accountability. Transparency. Responsibility. These are not words that are often applied to software development. In this completely revised introduction to Extreme Programming (XP), Kent Beck describes how to improve your software development by integrating these highly desirable concepts into your daily development process. The first edition of Extreme Programming Explained is a classic. It won awards for its then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Much has changed in five years. This completely rewritten second edition expands the scope of XP to teams of any size by suggesting a program of continuous improvement based on:

• Five core values consistent with excellence in software development

• Eleven principles for putting those values into action

• Thirteen primary and eleven corollary practices to help you push development past its current business and technical limitations

• Involve the whole team—XP style

• Increase technical collaboration through pair programming and continuous integration

• Reduce defects through developer testing

• Align business and technical decisions through weekly and quarterly planning

• Improve teamwork by setting up an informative, shared workspace

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 125 Ratings

Nice intro to XP - 2006-02-20
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a good introduction to different aspects involved in extreme programming.

The author is the initial proponent of XP. First part of the book explains the present day software development realities(like deadlines etc) and the pitfalls that take place due to these time sensitive expectations. Author moves onto explain the necessity for XP and what are the basic guidelines of XP.

The author should be commened for covering where XP is impractical and should not be used. The book explains the life cycle of a XP project and different roles that are part of this radical process.

XP is not suitable for many present day organizations(due to age old approaches that are already implanted in the system); but should be considered for time sensitive deliverables. This book will definitely give a headsup on how to approach XP.

Small negative: The book takes too much time on what is wrong in other traditional approached to software development(for the size of the title:about 200 pages)

Extreme Programming: The evolutionary approach! - 2006-09-10
Reviewer Rating:
I came across this book in the Bibliography section of Scott Berkun's "The art of Project Management".

First, the structure. Well, this book is under 200 pages. So when Beck talks about keeping what is essential, he is surely applying it while writing books.

Second, the content. The book takes the reader from understanding business risks associated with software development, to understanding the changing economics of software development & why XP can fit the demands of an ever changing business scenario. The book then establishes what XP is, what are its features, what are the activities, who are the X players & then links the roles, activities, & features together across each phase in a typical XP project. While Beck is persuasive about the usefulness of XP, he has also included a chapter at the end of the book which talks about projects where using XP may not be advisable. And yes, such a project is an outsourced development project.

XP presents many interesting features. Traveling light - or code & tests together being all you need - sounds like a dream; nano-releases - or doing a daily or hourly build so that at any time you have a full system working, no matter the completeness of desired functionality - , building a system story by story, & going back & revisiting scope ever so often are all features that can be immensely valuable to the business & to the project team.

As a result of all this, & more such practices, XP resembles to an extent Darwinian evolution in some ways. Trying many things & keeping what works, designing for today's needs & changing that with tomorrow's requirements tomorrow but not today can be seen as interesting commonalities between Darwinian evolution & XP!

Overall, I think the book is great introduction to XP. I'd have liked case studies as well to understand how well good theory fits general projects of any kind, but this book does not cite too many such projects. Nevertheless, pick it up if you want to understand what the XP evolution is all about.

S!

perfect to start applying XP in a team! - 2009-02-16
Reviewer Rating:
excellent book! and easy to read, very focus on people!
I bought it for the team leader after reading it and she is loving it. we were already in the first steps of applying XP practices, but now she is in the right track

Thorough Overview of Extreme Programming (XP) - 2007-11-06
Reviewer Rating:
"Extreme Programming Explained" offers a thorough and good overview of the Extreme Programming (XP) approach to software development.

This book covers the fundamentals of XP and describes some of the benefits of this approach to developing software. While this approach may not suit all developers, project managers or companies, this book offers an interesting overview of XP.

A must read for any developer - 2007-09-23
Reviewer Rating:
I believe the basis in software development for business is in this book.
You can have the technique, the skills, and the money, but you will need the human side for any agile way of working.
This is not the silver bullet, but you NEED to read this book.

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