Queasy
Moderator<br>Console Gaming
You can tell it's cool by the 'X'
Sounds interesting yet counter-intuitive at the same time:
[/i]When Kevin Yu went to work for Hewlett-Packard in December 1999, he was a prematurely jaded 25-year-old programmer who had already lived through layoffs at Compaq and done a stint writing code at Digital Equipment Corp. Like most programmers he was withdrawn. He followed orders obediently. He felt removed. He worked alone.
Yu still codes at HP, but these days he's gregarious, passionate, and eager to solve problems of every kind. His attitude adjustment is the result of a new approach to writing software that's transformed practically every aspect of his job. The biggest change: Each afternoon, he pulls up a chair beside a fellow programmer, and the two of them share a single workstation - one monitor, one desk, one keyboard. It's common to find him in HP's Seattle offices shoulder to shoulder with teammate Asim Jalis, who stares into the screen as Yu "drives," both of them pondering aloud whether a new idea might work. Later, Jalis types as Yu watches, exclaiming periodically, "I get it!" when the spray of code makes sense. Sometimes one partner works the mouse while the other uses the keyboard, like a married couple finishing each other's sentences.
Yu is among thousands of coders who've discovered extreme programming, a method of software development that emphasizes constant feedback. Traditional coding devotes a huge amount of time to up-front planning, then demands rigid adherence to that plan. XP is different. Programmers spend relatively little time planning and instead dive into the writing, making course corrections as needed and allowing better ideas to emerge after snippets of code are tested and assessed. The result is a speedy loop: plan, code, test, release, plan, code, test. [/i]
Sounds interesting yet counter-intuitive at the same time:
[/i]When Kevin Yu went to work for Hewlett-Packard in December 1999, he was a prematurely jaded 25-year-old programmer who had already lived through layoffs at Compaq and done a stint writing code at Digital Equipment Corp. Like most programmers he was withdrawn. He followed orders obediently. He felt removed. He worked alone.
Yu still codes at HP, but these days he's gregarious, passionate, and eager to solve problems of every kind. His attitude adjustment is the result of a new approach to writing software that's transformed practically every aspect of his job. The biggest change: Each afternoon, he pulls up a chair beside a fellow programmer, and the two of them share a single workstation - one monitor, one desk, one keyboard. It's common to find him in HP's Seattle offices shoulder to shoulder with teammate Asim Jalis, who stares into the screen as Yu "drives," both of them pondering aloud whether a new idea might work. Later, Jalis types as Yu watches, exclaiming periodically, "I get it!" when the spray of code makes sense. Sometimes one partner works the mouse while the other uses the keyboard, like a married couple finishing each other's sentences.
Yu is among thousands of coders who've discovered extreme programming, a method of software development that emphasizes constant feedback. Traditional coding devotes a huge amount of time to up-front planning, then demands rigid adherence to that plan. XP is different. Programmers spend relatively little time planning and instead dive into the writing, making course corrections as needed and allowing better ideas to emerge after snippets of code are tested and assessed. The result is a speedy loop: plan, code, test, release, plan, code, test. [/i]
