Reviews of Extreme Programming Refactored

It was a nice surprise to see a balanced review from a "hardcore" XPer!

In DDJ's July issue, Steve Wilson provides a nice review of XPR - the review is also available on Steve's home page.

This review appeared in the January issue of UK-based Application Development Advisor magazine, and is now available online. Also check out my article in the same issue (co-written with Andy Carmichael), Too Agile by Half.

It's good to see that the book struck a chord with this reviewer. He didn't entirely agree with all the conclusions, but liked the book nonetheless.

The review concludes: "If you are interested in the software development process and are happy with technical writing that leans on satire to make its points then this is a book you will both enjoy reading and benefit from having done so."

A surprisingly paranoid reaction from an agile development author and XP advocate. In his review (which was deleted by Amazon.com), Langr accuses one of our correspondents of not being real, then gets angry because the same correspondent declared that he has "13 years of software development experience", as if that's a crime. Worth reading for the rant quality!

A mostly positive write-up from embedded systems lecturer Jack Ganssle. To sum up, he likes the book and its message, but felt that it should have been told without satire or funny songs. Humour... in a COMPUTER SCIENCE BOOK?? Perish the day...

It's worth pointing out a misunderstanding that the reviewer had with one of our arguments: he appeared to have got the impression that we're saying that XP cannot be tailored. Quite the contrary - the book's primary message is that XP is difficult to tailor, but we present a "pre-tailored" version that takes the risks into account.

But he finishes by recommending the book, so I shouldn't quibble!

A very nice review from Conrad Weisert at Information Disciplines, Inc. He also comments on the "not-so-hidden joke" behind the book's title.

An interesting perspective on XP and XPR, from a senior consultant in the banking and financial industry.

This review was posted by a friend (he's also quoted in the book a couple of times), although he begins the review by disclosing this fact.

This review is definitely worth a look - including the masses of comments (over 400 when I checked a few minutes ago!) from Slashdot readers, who seem to fall roughly equally into the pro- and anti-XP contingent. In fact the review and the mixture of comments together provide a well balanced summing-up of the rift in the IT industry that XP (and this book, of course) have caused. (Not saying the rift is necessarily a bad thing - it's good to slaughter a few sacred cows every now and again, as long as they're the right cows).

A very positive review from Mr Ed at Hacknot. The review concludes: "Just read it and take some comfort in knowing that you're not the only one to notice that the emperor has no clothes."

Also see their account of a programmer's experience with pair programming - well worth a look!

Of course, we would have been disappointed if Ron Jeffries (an XP author and possibly its loudest advocate) had described our book as anything less than "dangerous". It doesn't surprise us that Ron should give us a negative review, given that it's essentially his baby we're criticizing. Ron was also kind enough to post a 1-star review of XPR to amazon.com, right next to Steve McConnell's glowing 5-star review.

Interestingly, the xprogramming.com review of XPR also contains one of the most blatant Extremo claims so far - that XP "is about never needing to debug." Yegads everyone, put down those pitchforks - our silver bullet has arrived!

Also check out Ron's hack-job of our recent article in DDJ ("The Irony of Extreme Programming"), next to his glowing review of his own book. Ron states that the true irony of XP is that "while detractors continue to explain why it cannot work, software developers all over the world are having success with it" - even though we're very specific that we're absolutely not saying XP cannot work! (we make this point on page 1 of XPR). XPR is an honest critique because it presents both the good and bad sides of XP and suggests alternatives; but for some reason Ron misses this important point.

There seems to be a fair old flurry of reviews being posted to Amazon.com (plus a few reviews at Amazon.co.uk).

The pattern so far is as you'd expect - people who hate XP LOVE the book, and are posting very good reviews (thanks guys!), whereas people who love XP HATE the book, and are posting "these guys just don't get XP"-style reviews.

Interestingly, even though we're pointing out that there are some fundamental flaws in this popular development process that could endanger your project, some of the responses from pro-XPers are along the lines of: "No, no! Kent Beck's book didn't come out in late 2000, it came out in 1999!" Go figure...