On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 1:29 PM, John Carter <john.carter@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:49 AM, Charlie Poole charliepoole@...>
> wrote:
>
> > As you go smaller and smaller, don't you reach the point where it's no
> > longer a story? That is, no longer viewed as having value by the
> > customer?
> >snip<
> >
> > But we can't just go ahead and make that judgement
> > ourselves - it's a key insight of XP that the Customer is the definer of
> > value and I wouldn't want to forget that.
>
> It's one of the many blessings of distributed version control systems...
> you suddenly realize there is no real coupling between committing a
> changeset and publishing your work to the rest of the team as "fit for
> consumption".
>
> Indeed, although that notion isn't as strongly coupled to DVCSs as one
might imagine. Even centralized VCSs used to let you do that - although
with much more work - by use of what some call "promotion."

> So as soon as you realize that... you start committing all the time.
>
> Every single time the write test / test fail / write code / test pass cycle
> goes green.
>
> Commit.
>
Yes, I definitely do that locally. Makes it much easier to go back than
pushing ctrl-Z 500 times.

>
> The point about version control systems is they make you brave about
> changing things. (Because you always know _exactly_ what you changed, and
> you can always revert it if it was A Bad Idea.)
>
> Before distributed version control, I used to advocate just deleting your
changes.
Braveness in deleting code is an important value for agile programmers.
Version control gives you a better way to keep track of how far back you
need to erase.

> Having got that insight... you suddenly start wondering what else you can
> decouple.
>
> Yup, as soon as I "push", I have declared my changes as "fit for
> consumption by the rest of the team".
>
> Pre-XP, I worked on a project where the first level of commit meant the
code was good for me, the next level meant it was good for the team and
the third that it could be used by testing. When we introduced XP, the
third level became "for the customer." I've never heard anyone else
enunciate this distinction before! (BTW, we did this using Visual
SourceSafe,
probably the worst VCS ever written!)

> But I haven't declared it fit for consumption by my customer.
>
> So what if I shift my "done done" point forward and decoupled that from
> "showing it to the customer".
>
> ie. The point where it is all Tested, documented, review(ed or
> reviewable...preferably pair programmed, or if I can't do that... the diff
> in a web base
> collaboration tool http://www.reviewboard.org/), integrated, smoke tested,
> pushed to central repository.
>
> Sort of makes sense really... 90% of what I do to get anything to the "done
> done" point is not really understandable by a customer. It's only when I
> tie a whole bunch of stuff together with a vast bunch of existing stuff
> that the customer goes "Oh cool, I needed that!".
>
> I want the customer feedback ASAP... but I need (and can get) the feedback
> from the build system, smoke test suite, other developers even faster.
>
> If every changeset I push is so small "there is obviously nothing wrong
> with it" I will be in a better state than if the answer is "there is
> nothing obviously wrong with it".
>
> The aim of the experiment is to find out whether it is feasible to decouple
> "done done" from "get customer feedback", and what are the costs and
> benefits.
>
> I agree with you... anything that would decreasing the feedback from a
> customer would be A Bad Thing.
>
> Yes, that could be a potential cost of this approach. But not necessarily,
I think.

> How ever, sprint overruns happen sometimes... Priorities change. Shit
> happens both internally and externally. Wouldn't I be in a better state if
> I could point to a pile of "this stuff is done and dusted and I can go on
> to other things if you really want and come back to it later, and this
> other stuff isn't done at all." than sitting with a mouthful of teeth
> mumbling... "Well, it's not done done yet".
>
> The view of Scrum I'm starting to take is this.... "A Story is a Unit of
> Bidding (amongst competing customer interests and values) for the Team's
> attention."
>
> I don't want to over-generalize, but in my own experience, Scrum teams
(that I've worked on) were a bit more removed from the customer than
XP teams. It wasn't as easy to push the notion of customer value lower,
by spltting stories, so more attention was paid to (what we used to call)
tasks. Others may have had different experience, of course.

There is a further level beyond "ready for the customer" and  that's
"ready for release." Just because the customer has learned to see value
in some piece of work that's accomplished does not necessarily mean
that the work can be released yet - some minimum level of incremental
value may be needed first or some other stories may need to be completed
before we reach a "minimal releasable feature."

Charlie

Charlie

> --
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@...
> New Zealand
>
> --
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I _love_ sqlite and even better, firefox and sqlitemanager addon....

Your original....
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "user";
CREATE TABLE "user" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY  AUTOINCREMENT  NOT NULL
, "username" TEXT NOT NULL , "quest" TEXT, "favourite_color" TEXT,
"sparrow_velocity" REAL);
INSERT INTO "user" VALUES(1,'phlip','dbrefactor','pink',NULL);
INSERT INTO "user" VALUES(2,'john','codesweeping',NULL,4.3);


Normalised "null" free version...
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "favourite_color";
CREATE TABLE "favourite_color" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY  NOT NULL ,
"color" TEXT NOT NULL );
INSERT INTO "favourite_color" VALUES(1,'pink');

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "quest";
CREATE TABLE "quest" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY  NOT NULL , "quest"
TEXT NOT NULL );
INSERT INTO "quest" VALUES(1,'dbrefactor');
INSERT INTO "quest" VALUES(2,'streetsweeping');

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "user_normalised";
CREATE TABLE "user_normalised" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
AUTOINCREMENT  NOT NULL , "username" TEXT NOT NULL );
INSERT INTO "user_normalised" VALUES(1,'phlip');
INSERT INTO "user_normalised" VALUES(2,'john');

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "users_sparrow";
CREATE TABLE "users_sparrow" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY  NOT NULL ,
"velocity" REAL NOT NULL );
INSERT INTO "users_sparrow" VALUES(2,4.3);


A view to serve up _exactly_ what you had initially.
CREATE VIEW "user_view" AS  select
id,username,quest,favourite_color,sparrow_velocity from (select * from
(select id,username,color as favourite_color  from user_normalised
left outer join favourite_color using (id)) natural join (select
id,velocity as sparrow_velocity  from user_normalised left outer join
users_sparrow using (id)) left outer join quest using (id));


On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 5:16 AM, Phlip <phlip2005@...> wrote:
>
> I'm looking for a write-up for this refactor. If there ain't none,
> then this is the write-up.
>
> Here's the input table:
>
>   create table user
>       id <<pk>>
>       username         string
>       quest                   string
>       favorite_color      string
>       sparrow_velocity string
>
> The lower three fields are optional. A very rough explanation of
> "database normalization" says that optional fields should not be NULL
> (or, in the case of strings, blank). They should instead reside in a
> leaf table - a table whose foreign key points back to a main table.
> That table stores a NULL (or blank) by leaving its row out of the
> table.
>
> This is the only concept of "database normalization" that I
> understand, but it has not failed me yet. We start by declaring a
> table in our programming language, outside our database, to name these
> strings:
>
> USER_PROFILE_METADATA = [
>   [ 1, 'quest' ]
>   [ 2, 'favorite color' ]
>   [ 3, 'sparrow velocity' ]
> ]
>
> (Note that a truly pernicious refactor, that kept _everything_ in the
> database, would make that into a table, too. That would only improve
> our design if we intend to allow users to add profile types on the
> fly. Without that requirement, the design would just be the same as
> keeping the metadata in our program.)
>
> [Skipping over the "transition period" version], the resulting tables are:
>
>   create table user
>       id <<pk>>
>       username string
>
>   create table user_profile
>       id <<pk>>
>       user_id <<fk>>
>       metadata_id
>       value string
>
> That pattern allows us to replace this View code...
>
>    <li>What is your quest?</strong></li>
>    <li><strong><%= @user.quest %></strong></li>
>
>    <li>What is your favorite color?</strong></li>
>    <li><strong><%= @user.favorite_color %></strong></li>
>
>    <li>What is your sparrow velocity?</li>
>    <li><strong><%= @user.sparrow_velocity %></strong></li>
>
> ...with this:
>
>   <% USER_PROFILE_METADATA.each do |metadata_id, concept| %>
>      <li>What is your <%= concept %>?</li>
>      <li></strong>
>          <%=
>            profile = @user.user_profile.find_by_metadata_id(metadata_id)
>            profile ? profile.value : ''  # TODO move all this inside
> the User class
>          %>
>      </strong></li>
>   <% end %>
>
> The View code is now DRY.
>
> Note that we could also have left the table alone, and used
> USER_PROFILE_METADATA to pull fields out of a single table by their
> column names. This refactor's value is, among other things, we can add
> new profile types without further database surgery.
>
> --
>   Phlip
>   http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   extremeprogramming@eGroups.com
>
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>
>
>



--
John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                       Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch       Email : john.carter@...
New Zealand



--
John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...
New Zealand

--

------------------------------
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------------------------------

You guys are confusing me.

Normalisation, as I understand it, is reducing things to third normal form.
i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_normal_form

You just seem to be eschewing nulls, which is laudable, and adding a *lot*
of complexity, which is not. Chris Date talks a lot about avoiding nulls
wherever you can because you end up with 3 value logic and that way lies
madness.

I have seen the user/user_profile split done for pragmatic reasons of not
wanting to store a lot of null data in a table that might end up largely
empty, depending on the usage of the data. But it's a pragmatic phyisical
implementation from the days when we used to have logical and physical
models of the database.

In the Ruby example you are violating the "fat model, thin controller"
principle by putting the find_by logic in the view where it does not
belong, pushing this into the view just means you end up with stuff that's
brittle and very hard to test. Moving this into named methods on the model
class is what you should be doing, because you can do things like catch
exceptions (say a relationship is empty but you want to display a
meaningful default, it would be a nightmare to ram this in the view), and,
holy of holies, test it really easily. To test the view you'd have go into
a stubbing frenzy and it would be incredibly brittle.

ActiveRecord also has a nice built in delegation system you can use if you
must go for this data model and keep it out of the view.

There is also another separate discussion about how the now pervasive habit
of using synthetic id's as keys everywhere is a *bad* idea instead of the
true keys and other data that goes with them, but most ORM's aren't built
to do this so it's hard to do it right. But not doing it means it's really
easy to end up with orphaned or duplicate data unless you put in unique
indexes on the true keys and express the true relationships by defining
them in the underlying RDBMS.

I use AR because it's less work and everybody uses it, but it makes the
database nut in me cringe.

Thanks and regards,

Francis

Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/fjfish
Blog at http://www.francisfish.com
Books at https://leanpub.com/u/fjfish
CV http://www.pharmarketeer.com/francis.html

I have no intention of apologizing for believing in people, for insisting
that we all use this moment and these assets to create some art and improve
the world around us.
To do anything less than that is a crime. - Seth Godin


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:04 AM, John Carter <john.carter@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> I _love_ sqlite and even better, firefox and sqlitemanager addon....
>
> Your original....
> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "user";
> CREATE TABLE "user" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL
> , "username" TEXT NOT NULL , "quest" TEXT, "favourite_color" TEXT,
> "sparrow_velocity" REAL);
> INSERT INTO "user" VALUES(1,'phlip','dbrefactor','pink',NULL);
> INSERT INTO "user" VALUES(2,'john','codesweeping',NULL,4.3);
>
> Normalised "null" free version...
> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "favourite_color";
> CREATE TABLE "favourite_color" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL ,
> "color" TEXT NOT NULL );
> INSERT INTO "favourite_color" VALUES(1,'pink');
>
> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "quest";
> CREATE TABLE "quest" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL , "quest"
> TEXT NOT NULL );
> INSERT INTO "quest" VALUES(1,'dbrefactor');
> INSERT INTO "quest" VALUES(2,'streetsweeping');
>
> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "user_normalised";
> CREATE TABLE "user_normalised" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
> AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL , "username" TEXT NOT NULL );
> INSERT INTO "user_normalised" VALUES(1,'phlip');
> INSERT INTO "user_normalised" VALUES(2,'john');
>
> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "users_sparrow";
> CREATE TABLE "users_sparrow" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL ,
> "velocity" REAL NOT NULL );
> INSERT INTO "users_sparrow" VALUES(2,4.3);
>
> A view to serve up _exactly_ what you had initially.
> CREATE VIEW "user_view" AS select
> id,username,quest,favourite_color,sparrow_velocity from (select * from
> (select id,username,color as favourite_color from user_normalised
> left outer join favourite_color using (id)) natural join (select
> id,velocity as sparrow_velocity from user_normalised left outer join
> users_sparrow using (id)) left outer join quest using (id));
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 5:16 AM, Phlip phlip2005@...> wrote:
> >
> > I'm looking for a write-up for this refactor. If there ain't none,
> > then this is the write-up.
> >
> > Here's the input table:
> >
> > create table user
> > id < >
> > username string
> > quest string
> > favorite_color string
> > sparrow_velocity string
> >
> > The lower three fields are optional. A very rough explanation of
> > "database normalization" says that optional fields should not be NULL
> > (or, in the case of strings, blank). They should instead reside in a
> > leaf table - a table whose foreign key points back to a main table.
> > That table stores a NULL (or blank) by leaving its row out of the
> > table.
> >
> > This is the only concept of "database normalization" that I
> > understand, but it has not failed me yet. We start by declaring a
> > table in our programming language, outside our database, to name these
> > strings:
> >
> > USER_PROFILE_METADATA = [
> > [ 1, 'quest' ]
> > [ 2, 'favorite color' ]
> > [ 3, 'sparrow velocity' ]
> > ]
> >
> > (Note that a truly pernicious refactor, that kept _everything_ in the
> > database, would make that into a table, too. That would only improve
> > our design if we intend to allow users to add profile types on the
> > fly. Without that requirement, the design would just be the same as
> > keeping the metadata in our program.)
> >
> > [Skipping over the "transition period" version], the resulting tables
> are:
> >
> > create table user
> > id < >
> > username string
> >
> > create table user_profile
> > id < >
> > user_id < >
> > metadata_id
> > value string
> >
> > That pattern allows us to replace this View code...
> >
> > What is your quest?
> > *<%= @user.quest %>*
> >
> > What is your favorite color?
> > *<%= @user.favorite_color %>*
> >
> > What is your sparrow velocity?
> > *<%= @user.sparrow_velocity %>*
> >
> > ...with this:
> >
> > <% USER_PROFILE_METADATA.each do |metadata_id, concept| %>
> > What is your <%= concept %>?
> >
> > <%=
> > profile = @user.user_profile.find_by_metadata_id(metadata_id)
> > profile ? profile.value : '' # TODO move all this inside
> > the User class
> > %>
> >
> > <% end %>
> >
> > The View code is now DRY.
> >
> > Note that we could also have left the table alone, and used
> > USER_PROFILE_METADATA to pull fields out of a single table by their
> > column names. This refactor's value is, among other things, we can add
> > new profile types without further database surgery.
> >
> > --
> > Phlip
> > http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
>
> >
> > To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming@eGroups.com
> >
> > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
> extremeprogramming-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> >
> > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@...
> New Zealand
>
> --
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@...
> New Zealand
>
> --
>
> ------------------------------
> This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended recipient.
> It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of
> legal
> or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this
> transmission.
> If you are not an intended recipient, you may not use, disseminate,
> distribute or reproduce such email, any attachments, or any part thereof.
> If you have received a message in error, please notify the sender
> immediately and erase all copies of the message and any attachments.
> Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or
> corrupted during transmission nor can we guarantee that any email or any
> attachments are free from computer viruses or other conditions which may
> damage or interfere with recipient data, hardware or software. The
> recipient relies upon its own procedures and assumes all risk of use and
> of
> opening any attachments.
> ------------------------------
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:59 AM, Francis Fish <francis@...> wrote:

> Normalisation, as I understand it, is reducing things to third normal form.
> i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_normal_form

Then call what I did a "potentially good thing to do to databases". I
should not have used the term "normalization".

> You just seem to be eschewing nulls, which is laudable, and adding a *lot*
> of complexity, which is not. Chris Date talks a lot about avoiding nulls
> wherever you can because you end up with 3 value logic and that way lies
> madness.

If, for example, the values and labels, such as 'swallow_velocity',
had each gone into their own separate table, then the result would be
_more_ complex. Even if one then hid the complexity in a view.

The root of my refactor is "roll up an unrolled loop." Like I said, we
could also have rolled it up by making a list of fields, instead of
records, to loop through.

> In the Ruby example you are violating the "fat model, thin controller"
> principle by putting the find_by logic in the view where it does not
> belong, pushing this into the view just means you end up with stuff that's
> brittle and very hard to test. Moving this into named methods on the model
> class is what you should be doing, because you can do things like catch
> exceptions (say a relationship is empty but you want to display a
> meaningful default, it would be a nightmare to ram this in the view), and,
> holy of holies, test it really easily.

I said in a TODO comment to move the excess code to the model.

> To test the view you'd have go into
> a stubbing frenzy and it would be incredibly brittle.

I wouldn't have a problem with testing that through the view, but of
course the model comes first.

> ActiveRecord also has a nice built in delegation system you can use if you
> must go for this data model and keep it out of the view.

And I was illustrating the actual refactor, not ActiveRecord. Yes it
could wrap the leaf table.

> There is also another separate discussion about how the now pervasive habit
> of using synthetic id's as keys everywhere is a *bad* idea instead of the
> true keys and other data that goes with them, but most ORM's aren't built
> to do this so it's hard to do it right. But not doing it means it's really
> easy to end up with orphaned or duplicate data unless you put in unique
> indexes on the true keys and express the true relationships by defining
> them in the underlying RDBMS.

And I pointed out somewhere the metadata table could have been a real table.

> I use AR because it's less work and everybody uses it, but it makes the
> database nut in me cringe.

Ah, that explains it.

John Carter wrote:

>> Normalised "null" free version...
>> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "favourite_color";
>> CREATE TABLE "favourite_color" ("id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL ,
>> "color" TEXT NOT NULL );
>> INSERT INTO "favourite_color" VALUES(1,'pink');

Wat?

oookay, if we are still on the "null rule", maybe a better rule is
"sometimes you should replace several fields that are often all null,
together, with a leaf table, whose entire record might not be there."

>> A view to serve up _exactly_ what you had initially.
>> CREATE VIEW "user_view" AS select

Thanks but the idea was simplifying the code that non-database-nuts
care about; the model & view.

--
   Phlip
   http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand

Some weekend silliness...

Some of you may have come across http://xkcd.com/1133/ that describes
the Saturn 5 launcher with only the 10,000 most popular words in US
English.

Theo Sanderson had the awesome idea of making a text editor that
encouraged you to describe any idea with the same limitations.

So here's my attempt at the Agile Manifesto using the ten hundred most
used words:

http://is.gd/Mnl0zN

Can you do better?

Anybody want to have a go at the principles ;-)

Cheers,

Adrian
--
http://quietstars.com     adrianh@...     twitter.com/adrianh
t. +44 (0)7752 419080     skype adrianjohnhoward     pinboard.in/u:adrianh

> http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
>
> Can you do better?

Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
   http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq

It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.

Cheers,
Laurent

On 20/01/13 13:14, Laurent Bossavit wrote:
>> >http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
>> >
>> >Can you do better?
> Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
>    http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq

Nice.

> It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.

D'oh! ;-)

Adrian

Adrian, thanks for starting this.  Fun morning distraction

I was surprised to find conversation in the list with all other words that are
missing.

Here is mine:

http://bit.ly/dumbed_down_agile_manifesto

On Jan 20, 2013, at 7:22 AM, Adrian Howard wrote:

> On 20/01/13 13:14, Laurent Bossavit wrote:
> >> >http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
> >> >
> >> >Can you do better?
> > Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
> > http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq
>
> Nice.
>
> > It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.
>
> D'oh! ;-)
>
> Adrian
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"words that MR LAWYER uses" -- nice.


Angela Harms
cell or text: 541-337-8088
http://twitter.com/angelaharms


On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:21 AM, James Grenning <
james@...> wrote:

> Adrian, thanks for starting this.  Fun morning distraction
>
> I was surprised to find conversation in the list with all other words that
> are missing.
>
> Here is mine:
>
> http://bit.ly/dumbed_down_agile_manifesto
>
> On Jan 20, 2013, at 7:22 AM, Adrian Howard wrote:
>
> > On 20/01/13 13:14, Laurent Bossavit wrote:
> > >> >http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
> > >> >
> > >> >Can you do better?
> > > Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
> > > http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq
> >
> > Nice.
> >
> > > It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.
> >
> > D'oh! ;-)
> >
> > Adrian
> >
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   extremeprogramming@eGroups.com
>
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
> extremeprogramming-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
>
> ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks.



On Jan 20, 2013, at 10:12 AM, Angela Harms wrote:

> "words that MR LAWYER uses" -- nice.
>
> Angela Harms
> cell or text: 541-337-8088
> http://twitter.com/angelaharms
>
> On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:21 AM, James Grenning <
> james@...> wrote:
>
> > Adrian, thanks for starting this. Fun morning distraction
> >
> > I was surprised to find conversation in the list with all other words that
> > are missing.
> >
> > Here is mine:
> >
> > http://bit.ly/dumbed_down_agile_manifesto
> >
> > On Jan 20, 2013, at 7:22 AM, Adrian Howard wrote:
> >
> > > On 20/01/13 13:14, Laurent Bossavit wrote:
> > > >> >http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
> > > >> >
> > > >> >Can you do better?
> > > > Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
> > > > http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq
> > >
> > > Nice.
> > >
> > > > It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.
> > >
> > > D'oh! ;-)
> > >
> > > Adrian
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > To Post a message, send it to: extremeprogramming@eGroups.com
> >
> > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
> > extremeprogramming-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> >
> > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

:)

It is fun.

One quibble. We chose "over" quite carefully. "Rather than" implies more
"instead of". Recall that "over" represents a preference but not a strict
prohibition against the things on the right.

R
On Jan 20, 2013, at 8:14 AM, Laurent Bossavit <laurent@...> wrote:

> > http://is.gd/Mnl0zN
> >
> > Can you do better?
>
> Fun stuff. Here's my attempt:
> http://bit.ly/WPz6Wq
>
> It turns out that "computer" is in the list, that makes things easier.


Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
I try to Zen through it and keep my voice very mellow and low.
Inside I am screaming and have a machine gun.
Yin and Yang I figure.
   -- Tom Jeffries



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

So over the years the backlog grows.

Defects, enhancements, technical debt, wish lists, good ideas, .....

Yes, yes, yes, I know about the planning game.

But the fact is it grows, it ages, better ideas come along, really really
Good ideas get buried, priorities shift, customers come and go, customers
have competing interests and different sized pocket books....

The order in which stories are done often influences the total cost.

How do you prioritise a list that is longer than anyone can keep in their
head, taking into account competing customers and interests?

Gotchas I have seen with "The Obvious" approaches are...

  * Important stuff that is hard to do gets infinitely deferred, because,
"not now". And yet, if I look back, we would have gone faster if we bit the
bullet years back and did it then.
  * Important stuff just gets forgotten... because our brains are too full
of other "important" stuff.
  * Minor stuff, but utterly trivial to do gets, infinitely delayed, but
again, if we just did it, we would have gone faster.
  * Stuff that was ranked important... but delayed, remains important even
after the need for it has evaporated.

All easy problems to solve....

...but become hard when the list is on the wrong side of 500 and the number
of customers and interests are on the wrong side of 10.

How do you do it?

--
John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...
New Zealand

--

------------------------------
This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended recipient.
It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal
or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this
transmission.
If you are not an intended recipient, you may not use, disseminate,
distribute or reproduce such email, any attachments, or any part thereof.
If you have received a message in error, please notify the sender
immediately and erase all copies of the message and any attachments.
Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or
corrupted during transmission nor can we guarantee that any email or any
attachments are free from computer viruses or other conditions which may
damage or interfere with recipient data, hardware or software. The
recipient relies upon its own procedures and assumes all risk of use and of
opening any attachments.
------------------------------


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi John,

On Jan 23, 2013, at 7:13 PM, John Carter <john.carter@...> wrote:

> How do you prioritise a list that is longer than anyone can keep in their
> head, taking into account competing customers and interests?


Why would you try? Why not just figure out NOW what the most valuable things to
do NOW are, and do them?

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
I have two cats, and a big house full of cat stuff.
The cats fight and divide up the house, messing up their own lives.
Nice work cats.
Meow.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Your cup is full, you need to empty it.

> How do you do it?
>

Do nothing.

For several minutes.

Clear your head and think.

What is it that's really important - today.  :-)


On Jan 24, 2013, at 8:13 AM, John Carter <john.carter@...> wrote:

> So over the years the backlog grows.
>
> Defects, enhancements, technical debt, wish lists, good ideas, .....
>
> Yes, yes, yes, I know about the planning game.
>
> But the fact is it grows, it ages, better ideas come along, really really
> Good ideas get buried, priorities shift, customers come and go, customers
> have competing interests and different sized pocket books....
>
> The order in which stories are done often influences the total cost.
>
> How do you prioritise a list that is longer than anyone can keep in their
> head, taking into account competing customers and interests?
>
> Gotchas I have seen with "The Obvious" approaches are...
>
> * Important stuff that is hard to do gets infinitely deferred, because,
> "not now". And yet, if I look back, we would have gone faster if we bit the
> bullet years back and did it then.
> * Important stuff just gets forgotten... because our brains are too full
> of other "important" stuff.
> * Minor stuff, but utterly trivial to do gets, infinitely delayed, but
> again, if we just did it, we would have gone faster.
> * Stuff that was ranked important... but delayed, remains important even
> after the need for it has evaporated.
>
> All easy problems to solve....
>
> ...but become hard when the list is on the wrong side of 500 and the number
> of customers and interests are on the wrong side of 10.
>
> How do you do it?
>
> --
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@...
> New Zealand
>
> --
>
> ------------------------------
> This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended recipient.
> It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal
> or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this
> transmission.
> If you are not an intended recipient, you may not use, disseminate,
> distribute or reproduce such email, any attachments, or any part thereof.
> If you have received a message in error, please notify the sender
> immediately and erase all copies of the message and any attachments.
> Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or
> corrupted during transmission nor can we guarantee that any email or any
> attachments are free from computer viruses or other conditions which may
> damage or interfere with recipient data, hardware or software. The
> recipient relies upon its own procedures and assumes all risk of use and of
> opening any attachments.
> ------------------------------
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

+1

On Jan 23, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Eric Tiongson <tiongks@...> wrote:

> Your cup is full, you need to empty it.


Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Everything that needs to be said has already been said.
But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. -- Andre Gide



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In the same position we deleted our backlog and switched to a top 10 (obviously
with plenty communication).

We felt like a weight was lifted and our customers no longer referred to our
backlog as 'the black hole'.

It means you sometimes have to deliver a difficult message to the stories that
can't make the current top 10, but realistically if they can't then its not
something we would be likely to be able to get to anyway.

People take prioritisation a lot more seriously now as well.

K

--

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Jeffries <ronjeffries@...>
Sender: extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:31:20
To: <extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [XP] Prioritizing the backlog.

+1

On Jan 23, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Eric Tiongson <tiongks@...> wrote:

> Your cup is full, you need to empty it.


Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Everything that needs to be said has already been said.
But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. -- Andre Gide



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

How about resetting the backlog and creating a new one?

Or if it seems to be too extreme even for an Extreme Programmer, kill everyting
older than one year or x months. If it is important, it will reappear.

Question: How can it be that something is really important, but rotting in the
backlog for a year or longer? ;-)
--
Alexander Kriegisch
http://scrum-master.de


Am 24.01.2013 um 01:13 schrieb John Carter <john.carter@...>:

> So over the years the backlog grows.
>
> Defects, enhancements, technical debt, wish lists, good ideas, .....
>
> Yes, yes, yes, I know about the planning game.
>
> But the fact is it grows, it ages, better ideas come along, really really
> Good ideas get buried, priorities shift, customers come and go, customers
> have competing interests and different sized pocket books....
>
> The order in which stories are done often influences the total cost.
>
> How do you prioritise a list that is longer than anyone can keep in their
> head, taking into account competing customers and interests?
>
> Gotchas I have seen with "The Obvious" approaches are...
>
> * Important stuff that is hard to do gets infinitely deferred, because,
> "not now". And yet, if I look back, we would have gone faster if we bit the
> bullet years back and did it then.
> * Important stuff just gets forgotten... because our brains are too full
> of other "important" stuff.
> * Minor stuff, but utterly trivial to do gets, infinitely delayed, but
> again, if we just did it, we would have gone faster.
> * Stuff that was ranked important... but delayed, remains important even
> after the need for it has evaporated.
>
> All easy problems to solve....
>
> ...but become hard when the list is on the wrong side of 500 and the number
> of customers and interests are on the wrong side of 10.
>
> How do you do it?
>
> --
> John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...
> New Zealand
>
> --
>
> ------------------------------
> This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended recipient.
> It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal
> or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this
> transmission.
> If you are not an intended recipient, you may not use, disseminate,
> distribute or reproduce such email, any attachments, or any part thereof.
> If you have received a message in error, please notify the sender
> immediately and erase all copies of the message and any attachments.
> Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or
> corrupted during transmission nor can we guarantee that any email or any
> attachments are free from computer viruses or other conditions which may
> damage or interfere with recipient data, hardware or software. The
> recipient relies upon its own procedures and assumes all risk of use and of
> opening any attachments.
> ------------------------------
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   extremeprogramming@eGroups.com
>
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
extremeprogramming-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
>
> ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.comYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi John,

On Jan 23, 2013, at 7:13 PM, John Carter <john.carter@...> wrote:

> All easy problems to solve....
>
> ...but become hard when the list is on the wrong side of 500 and the number
> of customers and interests are on the wrong side of 10.


See also my old article about having no backlog: Petition the King.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
I know we always like to say it'll be easier to do it now than it
will be to do it later. Not likely. I plan to be smarter later than
I am now, so I think it'll be just as easy later, maybe even easier.
Why pay now when we can pay later?



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello there,
this is my first post, so please correct me if I made any mistakes.

I'm studying applied computer science in Germany at a so-called "Duale
Hochschule". It's a practice-oriented dual education. This means I work about 3
months in a company (always the same) and then I study for about 3 Months at the
university - theory and practice combined.

The next big challenge is my bachelorthesis. Some companies usually advertise
some topics they want researched, but as I'm already tied to my company (a
rather small one) and they don't have a specific topic to research I have to
found one for myself. Of course it should bring some benefit to the company.

The suggestion of my boss is, that I should choose a topic of my personal
interest and, if possible, it should yield some kind of benefit to the company -
any kind.
My current field of interest is around the topic of testing in general,
test-driven-development and clean-code. I know that these are broad topics, but
for the moment I can't really specify it further.

These topics are kind of related to XP (I'm not perfectly familiar with the
practices of XP) and therefore I chose to ask you.

So here I am, familiar with the basics of TDD, interested in Testing in general
(best practices and so on) and the beauty of clean code. As I'm a student I
don't have that much experience, so every suggestion of topic either doesn't
suit me (too big or too much unknown stuff) or I just can't imagine what to do
and how to do it.

The only real restriction here is, that due to the size of the company I'm
rather unable to gather enough data to do some kind of "how does X affect the
team / behaviour / efficiency".

My question in particular is: Are there any topics of TDD that are still not
researched yet or need a fresh look / a different perspective?
Or are there any questions in the community I could base my thesis on?
Do you have any further ressources like other forums (already posted a more
general question to academia.stackexchange.com) or anything similar?

I really don't want to put the search for my thesis on you - really - I don't,
but I'm quite lost here as I can't "think out of the box" in this case - this
really bugs me.

I appreciate _every_ kind of suggestion, idea oder tipp.

Kind regards
ZobbL

Il 24/01/2013 11:48, zobbl ha scritto:
>
>
> Hello there,
> this is my first post, so please correct me if I made any mistakes.
>
> I'm studying applied computer science in Germany at a so-called "Duale
> Hochschule". It's a practice-oriented dual education. This means I
> work about 3 months in a company (always the same) and then I study
> for about 3 Months at the university - theory and practice combined.
>
> The next big challenge is my bachelorthesis. Some companies usually
> advertise some topics they want researched, but as I'm already tied to
> my company (a rather small one) and they don't have a specific topic
> to research I have to found one for myself. Of course it should bring
> some benefit to the company.
>
> The suggestion of my boss is, that I should choose a topic of my
> personal interest and, if possible, it should yield some kind of
> benefit to the company - any kind.
> My current field of interest is around the topic of testing in
> general, test-driven-development and clean-code. I know that these are
> broad topics, but for the moment I can't really specify it further.
>
> These topics are kind of related to XP (I'm not perfectly familiar
> with the practices of XP) and therefore I chose to ask you.
>
> So here I am, familiar with the basics of TDD, interested in Testing
> in general (best practices and so on) and the beauty of clean code. As
> I'm a student I don't have that much experience, so every suggestion
> of topic either doesn't suit me (too big or too much unknown stuff) or
> I just can't imagine what to do and how to do it.
>
> The only real restriction here is, that due to the size of the company
> I'm rather unable to gather enough data to do some kind of "how does X
> affect the team / behaviour / efficiency".
>
> My question in particular is: Are there any topics of TDD that are
> still not researched yet or need a fresh look / a different perspective?
> Or are there any questions in the community I could base my thesis on?
> Do you have any further ressources like other forums (already posted a
> more general question to academia.stackexchange.com) or anything similar?
>
Surely you will not the 1st to investigate TDD, I think there are a lot
of thesis and study about it. You should say if you are alone or in a
team and if you are investigating your or the team performance. In my
opinion TDD is a best practice but I don't know if it is sufficient to
do a thesis.
>
>
> I really don't want to put the search for my thesis on you - really -
> I don't, but I'm quite lost here as I can't "think out of the box" in
> this case - this really bugs me.
>
> I appreciate _every_ kind of suggestion, idea oder tipp.
>
> Kind regards
> ZobbL
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com, "M. Manca"  wrote:
>
> Il 24/01/2013 11:48, zobbl ha scritto:
> >
> >
> > Hello there,
> > this is my first post, so please correct me if I made any mistakes.
> >
> > I'm studying applied computer science in Germany at a so-called "Duale
> > Hochschule". It's a practice-oriented dual education. This means I
> > work about 3 months in a company (always the same) and then I study
> > for about 3 Months at the university - theory and practice combined.
> >
> > The next big challenge is my bachelorthesis. Some companies usually
> > advertise some topics they want researched, but as I'm already tied to
> > my company (a rather small one) and they don't have a specific topic
> > to research I have to found one for myself. Of course it should bring
> > some benefit to the company.
> >
> > The suggestion of my boss is, that I should choose a topic of my
> > personal interest and, if possible, it should yield some kind of
> > benefit to the company - any kind.
> > My current field of interest is around the topic of testing in
> > general, test-driven-development and clean-code. I know that these are
> > broad topics, but for the moment I can't really specify it further.
> >
> > These topics are kind of related to XP (I'm not perfectly familiar
> > with the practices of XP) and therefore I chose to ask you.
> >
> > So here I am, familiar with the basics of TDD, interested in Testing
> > in general (best practices and so on) and the beauty of clean code. As
> > I'm a student I don't have that much experience, so every suggestion
> > of topic either doesn't suit me (too big or too much unknown stuff) or
> > I just can't imagine what to do and how to do it.
> >
> > The only real restriction here is, that due to the size of the company
> > I'm rather unable to gather enough data to do some kind of "how does X
> > affect the team / behaviour / efficiency".
> >
> > My question in particular is: Are there any topics of TDD that are
> > still not researched yet or need a fresh look / a different perspective?
> > Or are there any questions in the community I could base my thesis on?
> > Do you have any further ressources like other forums (already posted a
> > more general question to academia.stackexchange.com) or anything similar?
> >
> Surely you will not the 1st to investigate TDD, I think there are a lot
> of thesis and study about it. You should say if you are alone or in a
> team and if you are investigating your or the team performance. In my
> opinion TDD is a best practice but I don't know if it is sufficient to
> do a thesis.

Thanks for your reply.
At the moment I'm working on my own (getting used to TDD, gathering information
Testing in general). All in all I'm trying to expand my knowledge in these
areas. Therefore I'm going to meetings with my colleagues, planning the sprint
and estimating and participate in code-reviews and so on.
This keeps me up to date with the projects in the company, I gain more and more
insight in my co-workers style of programming and habits.

I'm quite sure the thesis will be a task where I work on my own most of the
time. And it most likely will be a more technical task than an analysis of a
social aspect. But the subject for the thesis is not found, yet, so these are
just assumptions (and some kind of preferences ;)).

> >
> >
> > I really don't want to put the search for my thesis on you - really -
> > I don't, but I'm quite lost here as I can't "think out of the box" in
> > this case - this really bugs me.
> >
> > I appreciate _every_ kind of suggestion, idea oder tipp.
> >
> > Kind regards
> > ZobbL
> >
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Hi ZobbL,

Writing as a former academician, the problem with computer scientists doing
research in software development processes is that software development is
a social phenomenon more than a technical one.

Collecting some data is pointless if the biases in that data cannot be
controlled in the ways used by social science and medical research.
  Controlling for bias is difficult and involves techniques that are not
taught to computer scientists, not to mention expensive and time-consuming.

The result is that many students in your position do something that is
really not valid research just to satisfy your requirement.  You may learn
something about software development if you follow this path, but what you
would learn about research will be false.

My suggestion is to focus on something purely technical for your research.
  This does not mean you should not continue to be interested in Agile, XP,
TDD, testing, etc., just that I strongly believe it is not feasible to do a
meaningful thesis on how people do things (especially from a computer
science point of view rather than a social science point of view).

There are purely technical topics on the edge of software development that
might be of interest.  For example, refactoring is purely technical.  You
might look into refactoring and automate a refactoring in the IDE that you
use at work (if not feasible in that IDE, try eclipse).  Or you could look
into perturbation testing and try to find something smallish you could
implement for your thesis.

Steven Gordon, PhD

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 5:16 AM, zobbl <cau.rocco@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
>
>
> --- In extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com, "M. Manca" wrote:
> >
> > Il 24/01/2013 11:48, zobbl ha scritto:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello there,
> > > this is my first post, so please correct me if I made any mistakes.
> > >
> > > I'm studying applied computer science in Germany at a so-called "Duale
> > > Hochschule". It's a practice-oriented dual education. This means I
> > > work about 3 months in a company (always the same) and then I study
> > > for about 3 Months at the university - theory and practice combined.
> > >
> > > The next big challenge is my bachelorthesis. Some companies usually
> > > advertise some topics they want researched, but as I'm already tied to
> > > my company (a rather small one) and they don't have a specific topic
> > > to research I have to found one for myself. Of course it should bring
> > > some benefit to the company.
> > >
> > > The suggestion of my boss is, that I should choose a topic of my
> > > personal interest and, if possible, it should yield some kind of
> > > benefit to the company - any kind.
> > > My current field of interest is around the topic of testing in
> > > general, test-driven-development and clean-code. I know that these are
> > > broad topics, but for the moment I can't really specify it further.
> > >
> > > These topics are kind of related to XP (I'm not perfectly familiar
> > > with the practices of XP) and therefore I chose to ask you.
> > >
> > > So here I am, familiar with the basics of TDD, interested in Testing
> > > in general (best practices and so on) and the beauty of clean code. As
> > > I'm a student I don't have that much experience, so every suggestion
> > > of topic either doesn't suit me (too big or too much unknown stuff) or
> > > I just can't imagine what to do and how to do it.
> > >
> > > The only real restriction here is, that due to the size of the company
> > > I'm rather unable to gather enough data to do some kind of "how does X
> > > affect the team / behaviour / efficiency".
> > >
> > > My question in particular is: Are there any topics of TDD that are
> > > still not researched yet or need a fresh look / a different
> perspective?
> > > Or are there any questions in the community I could base my thesis on?
> > > Do you have any further ressources like other forums (already posted a
> > > more general question to academia.stackexchange.com) or anything
> similar?
> > >
> > Surely you will not the 1st to investigate TDD, I think there are a lot
> > of thesis and study about it. You should say if you are alone or in a
> > team and if you are investigating your or the team performance. In my
> > opinion TDD is a best practice but I don't know if it is sufficient to
> > do a thesis.
>
> Thanks for your reply.
> At the moment I'm working on my own (getting used to TDD, gathering
> information Testing in general). All in all I'm trying to expand my
> knowledge in these areas. Therefore I'm going to meetings with my
> colleagues, planning the sprint and estimating and participate in
> code-reviews and so on.
> This keeps me up to date with the projects in the company, I gain more and
> more insight in my co-workers style of programming and habits.
>
> I'm quite sure the thesis will be a task where I work on my own most of
> the time. And it most likely will be a more technical task than an analysis
> of a social aspect. But the subject for the thesis is not found, yet, so
> these are just assumptions (and some kind of preferences ;)).
>
> > >
> > >
> > > I really don't want to put the search for my thesis on you - really -
> > > I don't, but I'm quite lost here as I can't "think out of the box" in
> > > this case - this really bugs me.
> > >
> > > I appreciate _every_ kind of suggestion, idea oder tipp.
> > >
> > > Kind regards
> > > ZobbL
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What are actual academic requirements for your bachler thesis? In my days not
too long ago this could be a paper with actual practical implications and you
didn't have to invent any science.
If this applies to you and you may solve some practical problem.. Solving
technical issues is a good advice here .
  What are the pains of your team? Or your company? E.g. do you have some legacy
system? It is probably plagued with problems. Do you miss some tool?

Oleg

--- In extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com, "zobbl"  wrote:
>
> Hello there,
> this is my first post, so please correct me if I made any mistakes.
>
> I'm studying applied computer science in Germany at a so-called "Duale
Hochschule". It's a practice-oriented dual education. This means I work about 3
months in a company (always the same) and then I study for about 3 Months at the
university - theory and practice combined.
>
> The next big challenge is my bachelorthesis. Some companies usually advertise
some topics they want researched, but as I'm already tied to my company (a
rather small one) and they don't have a specific topic to research I have to
found one for myself. Of course it should bring some benefit to the company.
>
> The suggestion of my boss is, that I should choose a topic of my personal
interest and, if possible, it should yield some kind of benefit to the company -
any kind.
> My current field of interest is around the topic of testing in general,
test-driven-development and clean-code. I know that these are broad topics, but
for the moment I can't really specify it further.
>
> These topics are kind of related to XP (I'm not perfectly familiar with the
practices of XP) and therefore I chose to ask you.
>
> So here I am, familiar with the basics of TDD, interested in Testing in
general (best practices and so on) and the beauty of clean code. As I'm a
student I don't have that much experience, so every suggestion of topic either
doesn't suit me (too big or too much unknown stuff) or I just can't imagine what
to do and how to do it.
>
> The only real restriction here is, that due to the size of the company I'm
rather unable to gather enough data to do some kind of "how does X affect the
team / behaviour / efficiency".
>
> My question in particular is: Are there any topics of TDD that are still not
researched yet or need a fresh look / a different perspective?
> Or are there any questions in the community I could base my thesis on?
> Do you have any further ressources like other forums (already posted a more
general question to academia.stackexchange.com) or anything similar?
>
> I really don't want to put the search for my thesis on you - really - I don't,
but I'm quite lost here as I can't "think out of the box" in this case - this
really bugs me.
>
> I appreciate _every_ kind of suggestion, idea oder tipp.
>
> Kind regards
> ZobbL
>

Good day to everyone,
I'm new to this group since I want to learn more about XP and hwo it is used,
improved, bent, etc in places that do agile development or just claim to do so.

For the last 5.5  years I've been working mostly on waterfall projects that all
had the usual problems of being late and over budget to some degree.

One time where I had 8 weeks sitting in one room with the customer, being able
to ask questions and get feedback in a matter of minutes to implement a proof of
concept, the work resulted in a further order for a project (most likely to
become waterfall again).

So I was already allowed to peek into the world of agile project execution.

After going through some books, blogs and websites in the last few months I
started wondering how developers on the lookout for new job can determine if the
company they are interviewing with, is not a fake agile shop.

Is it as easy as saying: "Please show me your open workspace. Where is the
planning board? Can I see you devs pair programming? Where's your on-site
customer?"

Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?


Markus

Mark,

On Jan 26, 2013, at 4:36 AM, "markusdeibel" <drum-d@...> wrote:

> Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?


A really good Agile team will only hire people after those people have come to
work with them for a while. That will tell both you and them a lot.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
-- Ronald Reagan





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pivotal Labs is a good XP shop and doing XP religiously.



From: markusdeibel
Sent: ‎January‎ ‎26‎, ‎2013 ‎4‎:‎36‎ ‎PM
To: extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [XP] How to find a good XP team/shop?






Good day to everyone,
I'm new to this group since I want to learn more about XP and hwo it is used,
improved, bent, etc in places that do agile development or just claim to do so.

For the last 5.5 years I've been working mostly on waterfall projects that all
had the usual problems of being late and over budget to some degree.

One time where I had 8 weeks sitting in one room with the customer, being able
to ask questions and get feedback in a matter of minutes to implement a proof of
concept, the work resulted in a further order for a project (most likely to
become waterfall again).

So I was already allowed to peek into the world of agile project execution.

After going through some books, blogs and websites in the last few months I
started wondering how developers on the lookout for new job can determine if the
company they are interviewing with, is not a fake agile shop.

Is it as easy as saying: "Please show me your open workspace. Where is the
planning board? Can I see you devs pair programming? Where's your on-site
customer?"

Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?

Markus





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Joshua,

On Jan 26, 2013, at 7:07 AM, "joshua.java@..." <joshua.java@...>
wrote:

> Pivotal Labs is a good XP shop and doing XP religiously.


I like to think of XP as more experience-based than faith-based. :)

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to
understand him. - George Santayana



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Markus,

Be clear with yourself about whether you're looking for an XP shop or an
"Agile" shop. If they are doing XP, the questions you suggest are all good
ones and nobody should be put off by your asking them. On the contrary,
they show that you really know what you want.

OTOH, "agile" - even aside from "fake agile" - can look quite different in
different settings. You may want to ask more open questions like "Do you do
TDD?" or "How to you get questions answered from the customer?"

Good luck in your search!

Charlie


On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:36 AM, markusdeibel <drum-d@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Good day to everyone,
> I'm new to this group since I want to learn more about XP and hwo it is
> used, improved, bent, etc in places that do agile development or just claim
> to do so.
>
> For the last 5.5 years I've been working mostly on waterfall projects that
> all had the usual problems of being late and over budget to some degree.
>
> One time where I had 8 weeks sitting in one room with the customer, being
> able to ask questions and get feedback in a matter of minutes to implement
> a proof of concept, the work resulted in a further order for a project
> (most likely to become waterfall again).
>
> So I was already allowed to peek into the world of agile project execution.
>
> After going through some books, blogs and websites in the last few months
> I started wondering how developers on the lookout for new job can determine
> if the company they are interviewing with, is not a fake agile shop.
>
> Is it as easy as saying: "Please show me your open workspace. Where is the
> planning board? Can I see you devs pair programming? Where's your on-site
> customer?"
>
> Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?
>
> Markus
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hey Markus,

I am also new to XP and recently read the book from Kent Beck.

This is how we are implementing the story board in our office.

:-)

Best,

Andres


Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "markusdeibel" <drum-d@...>
To: <extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [XP] How to find a good XP team/shop?
Date: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 4:36 AM
Good day to everyone,

I'm new to this group since I want to learn more about XP and hwo it is used,
improved, bent, etc in places that do agile development or just claim to do so.



For the last 5.5  years I've been working mostly on waterfall projects that all
had the usual problems of being late and over budget to some degree.



One time where I had 8 weeks sitting in one room with the customer, being able
to ask questions and get feedback in a matter of minutes to implement a proof of
concept, the work resulted in a further order for a project (most likely to
become waterfall again).



So I was already allowed to peek into the world of agile project execution.



After going through some books, blogs and websites in the last few months I
started wondering how developers on the lookout for new job can determine if the
company they are interviewing with, is not a fake agile shop.



Is it as easy as saying: "Please show me your open workspace. Where is the
planning board? Can I see you devs pair programming? Where's your on-site
customer?"



Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?



Markus











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The first and most important step is to get connected to the local
community in a city near you. Good practices thrive in an environment where
professionals talk to and support one another.
  On Jan 26, 2013 3:05 AM, "markusdeibel" <drum-d@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Good day to everyone,
> I'm new to this group since I want to learn more about XP and hwo it is
> used, improved, bent, etc in places that do agile development or just claim
> to do so.
>
> For the last 5.5 years I've been working mostly on waterfall projects that
> all had the usual problems of being late and over budget to some degree.
>
> One time where I had 8 weeks sitting in one room with the customer, being
> able to ask questions and get feedback in a matter of minutes to implement
> a proof of concept, the work resulted in a further order for a project
> (most likely to become waterfall again).
>
> So I was already allowed to peek into the world of agile project execution.
>
> After going through some books, blogs and websites in the last few months
> I started wondering how developers on the lookout for new job can determine
> if the company they are interviewing with, is not a fake agile shop.
>
> Is it as easy as saying: "Please show me your open workspace. Where is the
> planning board? Can I see you devs pair programming? Where's your on-site
> customer?"
>
> Are there other indicators for good (and bad) agile teams?
>
> Markus
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]