A Common Sense Approach to Extreme Programming

by Derrick Story
Network Newsletter for 08/05/2003

Dear Reader,

I remember when I first met chromatic. I was walking down the hallway at the Open Source Convention in San Diego and noticed a group of folks crowded around an open door. chromatic was inside the classroom leading a session on Extreme Programming (XP). People were packed in there tighter than a suitcase for a three-week vacation. That's when XP and chromatic moved a little closer to the center of my radar screen.

Not long after that we hired him to manage our ONLamp site. He's done a great job, and instead of wasting his extra time with silly things such as sleep, he's been working on the "Extreme Programming Pocket Guide" for O'Reilly.

If you want a glimpse into how chromatic tackles this innovative approach to software development, you might want to take a look at his article, "Five Lessons You Should Learn from Extreme Programming." I think you'll see why people were flowing out the door during his OSCON session a few years ago. And just possibly, you might be inspired to dig deeper into XP by giving his pocket guide a read. chromatic has a knack for making XP easy to understand and very accessible.

Until next week,

-Derrick

Derrick Story
O'Reilly Network Managing Editor

To subscribe to the O'Reilly Network newsletter (or other newsletters), visit https://epoch.oreilly.com/account/default.orm and select the newsletters you wish to receive in your user profile (you'll need to log in with your existing O'Reilly Network account -- if you don't yet have an account, you'll need to create one). To change your newsletter subscription options, please visit https://epoch.oreilly.com/account/default.orm and click the"Manage My Newsletters" link. For assistance, send email to

Featured Articles

Five Lessons You Should Learn from Extreme Programming
Extreme Programming (XP) is yet another popular idea gaining press. It adapts the best ideas from the past decades of software development. Whether or not you adopt XP, it's worth considering what XP teaches. chromatic, author of Extreme Programming Pocket Guide, offers five lessons you should learn from Extreme Programming.

Open Directory and Active Directory, Part 1
For the last number of months, Michael Bartosh has been working on this series of articles for Mac DevCenter readers that examines Mac OS X's Directory Services architecture in depth and explores how to integrate these services with Microsoft's Active Directory. This is the same topic that Michael will be discussing in person at the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference.

UML for Web Services
How can web services development be given a proper design process? Enter the Unified Modeling Language, or UML, which is the whiteboard notation for object-oriented analysis and design, and offers a natural fit to RPC-style service design.

Secure Cooking with C and C++, Part 3
In the final installment in this three-part series of sample recipes from Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++, the authors discuss what you need to do to verify that a supplied email address, which your program has accepted as input, is valid.

Introduction to Closed-Loop Control
Most control systems utilize feedback in some manner. These are known as closed-loop control systems. Here's a look at several fundamental feedback mechanisms, culminating in a description of a basic PID controller, by Michael Barr, author of Programming Embedded Systems for C and C++.

Outboard Brains for Mac OS X
Here's a brief look at some applications designed to be digital brain-dumps; electronic Pensieves into which you can throw any information you want, knowing that it will still be there when you need it later. Giles Turnbull looks at a variety of "outboard brains" utilites and highlights their particular strengths.

Introduction to System.DirectoryServices, Part 2
In the conclusion to this two-part series on using the .NET Framework's System.DirectoryServices namespace, Robbie Allen, coauthor of Active Directory, 2nd Edition, looks at how to search with the DirectorySearcher class.

PHP Security, Part 1
If you have users, you'll undoubtedly have bad guys trying to break things. As a PHP developer, it's your responsibility to make sure your code is secure. John Coggeshall demonstrates one common PHP error that can leave you vulnerable, and he explains how to think like a bad guy to prevent these mistakes in the first place.

Paul Kafasis Tells the Story of Audio Hijack Pro
There are many ways to build a successful software company. In this interview with Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba, you'll see how three guys built the award-winning application Audio Hijack Pro while working miles, and sometimes even countries, apart.

Introducing JavaServer Faces
JavaServer Faces, or JSF, is heralded as the next step in server-side programming. It promises to make your life easier, your programs more maintainable, and maybe even your job more enjoyable. Budi Kurniawan demonstrates JSF, explaining why it's useful and if it lives up to its promises.

RDF: Ready for Prime Time
Shelley Powers, author of the recently released Practical RDF, discusses a few noteworthy examples of RDF applications, vocabularies, tools, and services that are up and running. In particular, she focuses on those that work with other RDF-based services.

New Books from O'Reilly & Associates

BLAST

ActionScript Cookbook

PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

Extreme Programming Pocket Guide

Cisco Cookbook

O'Reilly Network Top Five Articles Last Week

1. The Care and Feeding of Your iPod
   Battery life is a rather toasty topic among iPodders. People are not just comparing play time between charges, but battery behavior, and overall life span. J.D. Biersdorfer, author of iPod: The Missing Manual, shares ten basic battery tips to keep the tunes spinning.

2. A Musician's Take on File Sharing, DRM, and Copyleft Licensing
   Musicans can be a very adaptable community, and many are looking at online music and file sharing differently than the companies that often contract with them. Miriam Rainsford explores issues of P2P, DRM, and copyleft licensing from her musician point of view.

3. Five Lessons You Should Learn from Extreme Programming
   Extreme Programming (XP) is yet another popular idea gaining press. It adapts the best ideas from the past decades of software development. Whether or not you adopt XP, it's worth considering what XP teaches. chromatic, author of Extreme Programming Pocket Guide, offers five lessons you should learn from Extreme Programming.

4. jRendezvous: Java and Rendezvous Working Together
   With Rendezvous making IP networking simple, and Java making cross platform network programming possible, a beautiful friendship emerges -- jRendezvous. It allows Java programs running anywhere (not just Mac OS X) to participate in Rendezvous networks. Java programs can listen for, and advertise, services on the network with ease. Seth Ladd shows you how this works.

5. Top Ten Digital Photography Tips
   You have a digital camera and have recorded the typical shots of family and friends. Now what? Here are ten tips to make your next batch of digital images so impressive that people will ask: "Hey, what type of camera do you have?" Guess what? It's not the camera.

Return to list of Network Newsletters.

Return to the O'Reilly Network.