How many of you are Extreme Programmers?

[John Taylor]

Can someone please describe to me XP in a few sentences?  I have heard
the terminology before, but never an explanation.  Also, any good
links or books would be greatly appreciated.  Python is such a joy to
program in/with, I'd love to hear about making the process even
better!

Thanks,
John Taylor


blunck at gst.com (Christopher Blunck) wrote in message news:<1147e466.0304160630.5b510724 at posting.google.com>...
> Was just reading a thread about how python implements protected and
> private methods.  I found JP's response quite interesting (this is
> something I've heard numerous friends of mine say of the language):
> 
> [In Python] everything is permissible, but not
> everything is opportune.  And that is very much Python's philosophy:
> rather than focusing on trying to make some things impossible (and
> generally failing -- a simple cast in most implementations of C++ lets
> you blast away any "protected" that a silly library designer may have
> tried to impose on you;-), Python empowers and trusts the programmer.
> 
> 
> The natural response a non-Python programmer has to this statement is,
> "what?!  you __trust__ the programmer?!  that doesn't work in most
> environments."  Despite the ignorance this response demonstrates, I
> none-the-less thought about the statement and the answer I came up
> with was "we write lots of really thorough tests to demonstrate
> functionality."
> 
> That got me to thinking:  continuous testing is a cornerstone of the
> XP methodology.  <generalization>And Python programmers typically
> write lots of tests</generalization> (at least more than their Java
> counterparts from what I've seen).  That being said, can that
> generalization be extended to "Python programmers subscribe to the XP
> methodology"?
> 
> So how many of you guys use XP processes?