XPSD Intros
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I noticed that there are a lot of new members in the past month or
so. In the past, we have asked people to try to identify
themselves
by anwering some basic questions about their backgroup and
experience
with XP. Answering these questions is completely voluntary.
Name?
Web site?
Based in?
Employed by?
Industry Experience?
Project Experience?
Recent Skills?
XP experience?
Why I like XP?
If I was allowed only one XP practice, what would it be? Why?
If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Weird Techie Factoid?
Name: Carlton Nettleton
Web site: /cgi-bin/wiki?CarltonNettleton
Based in : Mission Beach
Employed by: SAIC
Industry Experience: 5 yrs
Project Experience: creating web applications for business intranets, the Department of
Defense and for educators
Recent Skills: ASP (3 yrs), C# (2 year)
XP experience: 8 months, ASP web application and 18 months XPForOne? ASP web application.
Why I like XP: I love the idea of pressing a button and knowing if
your software is OK. I also like the XP idea of focusing on quality
in order to go fast and creating a cooperative work environment.
If I was allowed only one XP principle, I'd do: Testing
Why?: Unit testing is so important to me that I get very
uncomfortable when I try to write code without tests. AT are just as
important, but I still have not figured out a good way to make them
easy for me and my customers.
If I got two, the second would be: Iteration & Release Planning
Why?: I love getting out the cards, writing up stories and then
shuffling them up to get the right ammount of stories for the
iteration and/or release. I enjoy watching the customer labor over
what cards to pick.
Weird Techie Factoid: my first programming language was Fortran77. It seemed so hard and complicated (to a 19-year-old), that is made me into a geologist.
Name: John Arrizza
Web site: www.arrizza.com (use IE6!)
Based in : San Diego near UCSD
Employed by: Nokia
Industry Experience: 16 yrs
Project Experience: mostly shrinkwrapped s/w for businesses, mostly
middleware or back-end work, very little GUI/web work.
Recent Skills: C (6 yrs) VB (2yrs), C# 6 months, Java off and on
XP experience: 1 project, 6 months, mostly VB Web App, a bit of C & Java
Why I like XP: it recognizes the actual mechanics of how good S/W is built
and has principles/procedures that address those. Also I believe that S/W
development is a complex (as in chaotic) activity and therefore requires an
integrated plan of attack. XP addresses that complexity using high feedback
and supplies principles to use that feedback to remove complexity.
If I was allowed only one XP principle, I'd do: Iteration Planning
Why?: The key to a successful software _project_ is the
communication/interface between the people that want the software done and
the developers. Iteration Planning works very well from a developer's point
of view, and the non-engineering participants seem to like it as well. Even
if I couldn't do the ATs? and UTs?, I could still deliver the code the company
wanted.
If I got two, the second would be: Acceptance Testing
Why?: AT's cover a lot of the software execution space and provide very high
feedback about the code stability.
Weird Techie Factoid: I owned my first computer in 1977. From what I can
gather, that means I owned one of the first 100,000 personal computers on
the planet (there's been ~1B sold to date). Bill Gates came out with Basic a
year or so prior. He made $47B, I didn't :)
John
Paul Hodgetts
> Web site?
www.agilelogic.com
> Based in?
Fullerton, Orange County
> Employed by?
President & Principal Consultant at Agile Logic
> Industry Experience?
20 years as a developer, architect, technical project manager,
consultant... (see my bio on the web site for the gory details)
> Project Experience?
Lots of projects over the years. Five XP projects as coach and
developer, and occasionally manager, over the past three years.
> Recent Skills?
I'm always learning. As far as Agile skills, recently I've
learned more about integrating QA into the process, and developing
specific customer practices. As far as other skills, lately I've
gotten into some hard-core presentation-side Java stuff with
Struts and JSTL, and I keep discovering more dark corners of J2EE
every week. ;-)
> XP experience?
Three continuous years of XP projects, most of them from inception.
I've coached all these teams, and actively participated as a
developer on all but one. I've done all the practices (well, I've
done metaphor as much as I can understand it ;-), and most projects
have done all 12 all the time. The past couple of projects have
been project recovery efforts, where I had to come in and introduce
or re-establish an agile process to a project that had gone off the
rails. Both projects are now doing fine.
> Why I like XP?
I get to deliver software that works and that the customer needs
with a minimal amount of pain and a good deal of personal
satisfaction.
> If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be? Why?
(Note I'm paying attention, you said *principle* not *practice*
-- did you mean practice?)
Rapid Feedback - because first, we've got to compare our actual
results against some testable goal, and second, we have to do that
often enough to allow small corrections and reasonably efficient
development.
> If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Assume Simplicity - because as developers we've created a culture
where the clever solutions have value simply because they are
clever, and we've got to get away fro that and back to actually
solving the problem with the most minimal, but appropriate solution.
We can do so much more if we stop trying to over-build everything.
> Weird Techie Factoid?
Amazingly, the *first* high-level language I learned in college
back in 1979 was an object-oriented language -- Simula at UCI.
Regards,
Paul
Name? Bill Kelly
Web site? /BillKelly
Based in? San Diego
Employed by? self; now working for http://www.camerabits.com/
Industry Experience? 14 years professionally, 20 years programming
Project Experience?
2d & 3d video games; network protocols; data mining & visualization;
html layout engine & renderer
Recent Skills?
More about configuring an OS X server so far than I ever wanted
to know; BREW platform for cell phone applications; Ruby, Python,
Java, Perl, SQL, . . .
XP experience? one project; brief description on my xpsd page
Why I like XP?
The most trying / depressing / aggravating aspects of software
development for me had become: watching the codebase deteriorate
over time and become more complex, buggy, and highly coupled;
tracking down other peoples' bugs late into the night, who
would just cut & paste more code the next day, creating more
duplication, coupling, and additional bugs; death-marches
associated with impossible deadlines we stupidly agreed to, and
then re-agreed to as the previous one was missed and pushed out
a little farther; lack of communication between developers and
propriatery ownership of modules; overdesign, creating more
complexity up front in an effort to save time by introducing
a framework supposedly able to support every feature we would
ever need (one of my own worst anti-patterns of yore); . . .
What I like about XP is that it addresses all these problems
(and more) head on, and, it's actually a fun way to work, too!
If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be? Why?
As Paul noted, if we mean principles, I'm for Feedback and
Simple Design... If I were allowed only one practice, it
would probably be Test-Driven Design.
(I think it would be hard to practice TDD without Refactoring,
so I'm assuming we'd get sort of a two-for-one here. :)
If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Pair Programming; but I think Whole Team (in one room) is
is almost vitally important as well.
Weird Techie Factoid?
Found an 8th grade notebook of mine, within which, inbetween
homework assignments, were scribbled notes and source code for
raw disk sector read-write routines and low-level IBM CGA
display routines... most of it was in Forth. :)
Regards,
Bill
Name: Ryan Thoma
Web site: N/A
Based in: San Diego
Employed by: BAE Systems
Industry Experience: 9 years professionally, 18 years programming
Project Experience: Mainly focused around J2EE web applications and web services. Some past projects included: Debt Consolidation Loan website for GE (to turn you debt into one easy monthly payment), Lottery Account Betting System (accessible via web, wireless, voice/telephone), B2B extranet for a wholesaler to integrate with partners, dot-com travel portal, etc.
Recent Skills: Learning more about SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture)
XP experience: Involved with establishing a custom tailored, agile development process at multiple different companies.
Why I like XP: Im practical and interested in delivering great software that meets real customer needs -- XP is well suited in both respects.
If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be: Rapid feedback is definitely something I have seen to be very fruitful in my past experiences.
Weird Techie Factoid: I still have a Commodore 64 emulator (yes, blue screen and all) that runs on Windows... purely for nostalgic purposes... although I did trick a friend once after telling them I upgraded their computer to the latest OS.
--Ryan
Samuel has started a trend ...
Name: Peter Merel
Website: www.xpsd.org, www.greencheese.org
Based in: Coronado, California
Employer:
Till last week, Omnigon Technologies.
As soon as it's incorporated, XPSD.
Experience
Industry: First got paid to program 20 years ago. Been developing
full time for 17 years.
Project: GreenCheese?, XPSD, Stone Society, and GNL.
Recent Skills: Python, C, Zope
XP Experience:
I've coached 3.5 XP groups from go to woah (Omnigon IE group was only
semi-extreme).
Invented Extreme Hour and Iron Geek.
Authored "The Tao of XP".
Why I like XP:
It frees me from doing work I know is pointless.
It allows my teams to have fun and go fast.
It cranks out bug free self-documenting code reliably.
It flattens the cost of change curve.
If I were allowed only one technique from XP: Test Driven Design
If I were allowed only two techniques from XP: Pair Programming.
Weird Techie Factoid: P == NP
Hi, John,
>Yahoo says there are 12 or so members in this group. I was wondering if, for
>the sake of introduction, would people like to give a short bio or
>background of themselves?
Nice idea. Here's me.
I'm living in Kiel, Germany, about six months into a 2.5 year
contract. San Diego is "home base", though, which is why I signed up.
I haven't practiced XP yet, but I've tried some of the practices.
You can read about my TDD experiences at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/testdrivendevelopment/files/ClusterLog
I've also had a number of experiences that could qualify as pair
programming. I'm mentoring a couple of junior programmers here, and
doing something resembling PP as part of that
I find the ideas of XP interesting and I suspect I would enjoy the
process and find it productive, but I need to try it to make up my
mind about it. That won't happen at my current job; maybe the next
one.
I've been programming since about 1985, in fields ranging from mine
engineering to genetics. Started out in Object Pascal; reluctantly
moved to C, learned to love the STL, am now using VB, about which
I'm violently ambivalent. I've worked a fair amount with Sybase
Transact/SQL (and MS's derivative thereof) and like it.
My platform of choice has been the Mac, but with OSX my Mac is dead,
so now I'm programming on Windows. It's unpleasant, but usable. My
emphasis right along has been usability, but - well, I'm getting over
it. The computing world doesn't seem (to me) to care about
usability, so I'm working on other things.
I'm most interested in novel visualizations for scientific data; have
had some neat opportunities to apply that interest in the field of
genetics.
More about me and my programming is at
http://www.concentric.net/~manaster
For two more months, you can see some of my travel pictures at
http://homepage.mac.com/cmanaster/PhotoAlbum1.html
http://homepage.mac.com/cmanaster/PhotoAlbum2.html
And then I need to find another service provider...
Let's see... Outside interests? I read a lot of detective fiction,
recommend K C Constantine to anyone who will listen. Hoping to learn
German, but it's not happening viel schnell. Trying to use the
opportunity of living here to see a little more of the world.
Tschuess,
Carl
Name: Philip Craig Plumlee
Nom de Plume (ie Street Name): Phlip
Web site: www.greencheese.org/Phlip
Based in : San Diego near Carlsbad
Employed by: not
Industry Experience: 14 yrs
Project Experience: Architecture & visualization for
science and engineering
Recent Skills: Python, Ruby, C, Omnigon, Linux
XP experience: XpForOne?, and Omnigon (a big
difference!)
Why I like XP: it makes certain helpless loser drips
on
USENET scream and howl like the pro victims they are.
Weird Techie Factoid:
I draw comics frantically:
http://www.greencheese.org/SonseOne
Being the gods' gift to both programming and
cartooning,
my life's ambition is to find an employer capable of
>fully< exploiting me!
My random signature generator has reminded me
I also practice a genre I have since learned
is called "filk". DontPlanDesigns? is a parody
of a Reggae song set to pitch XP.
Phlip
Name: Samuel A. Falvo II
Website: http://68.7.163.42:8080/engine (at least, until cable
company changes the IP)
Based in: Oceanside, California
Employer: Hifn, Inc.
Experience
Industry: >7 years; not exactly sure, as I've never kept close track.
Been working at Hifn for only about a year or so, spent 6 years in the ISP
industry in a variety of capacities, spent at least a year helping another
write custom dental software back in NY state, and I forget the rest.
Project: Web development, database back-ends, semiconductor
post-silicon verification, Forth language environments, operating system
kernels
Recent Skills: MLA-format documentation (Yes, I'm currently going to school.
Go figure!)
XP Experience: Using XpForOne? for roughly 6 months
Why I like XP:
It works. Although I do not pair-program, keep track of project
velocities, nor do I consider myself 100% productive every single day (I get
burnt out a lot, especially with the politics where I work), I have noticed
marked improvements in my code quality and production volume. XP consists
of things I've been doing for *decades*, but never in the precise chemical
formula prescribed by XP. Test First by Intention is also something new
I've learned from XP, and has permanently affected how I write my software,
even when I'm not being extreme. I've been chastised by my upper management
and even by me peers for using Test First By Intention. I won't let them
get me down though; if the technique gets me fired, so be it. At least I'll
have a clear conscience about it.
If I were allowed only one technique from XP: Test First By Intention.
If I were allowed only two techniques from XP: Pair programming.
Weird Techie Factoid: As you could probably tell from my home-based wiki,
I'm into engines, with a particular interest in rotary engines. I'm also an
amateur astronomer, though I have gotten out to stargaze a lot lately. Also
a ham radio operator (KC5TJA).
Name: William Tanksley
Web site: er... Um... :-)
Based in : Oceanside
Employed by: Data Systems and Solutions
Industry Experience: 5-6 years
Project Experience: Software to automate hardware tests, now working
on a major CMM level 4 project
Recent Skills: C (3 yrs) C (7 yrs), Python, Forth, Java
XP experience: Using TDD for 4 months now...
Why I like XP: It fits into the way I work. Before I knew about XP I
used a little version of the Spiral model; XP completely replaced it
(although I probably should keep managing risks). It fits into the
way I see other people working. It's self-motivating: every practice
I've been able to try rewards itself, and immediately meshes with the
others.
If I was allowed only one XP principle, I'd do: Test First. No doubt
about this -- it makes coding fun again. Then I'd sneak in some
refactoring, because just TRY to stop me.
If I got two, the second would be: Pair Programming. Never gotten to
do this, but it seems to me that many of the other practices grow out
from it.
Weird Techie Factoid: None.
-Billy
Name?
Jon
Web site?
Doing intranet work... so, sorry, no links...
Based in?
I'm addicted to Microsoft, sorry...
Employed by?
Fish & Richardson P.C. www.fr.com
Industry Experience?
depends on the industry... programmer for a handful of years now.
Project Experience?
zilch.. zero.. nada.. project???
Recent Skills?
.NET stuff ... ado.net asp.net vb.net
XP experience?
see "Project Experience"
Why I like XP?
I lack a natural tendency toward organization...
If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be?
Pair Programming
Why?
Seems to me to be the fastest way to get some work done.
I'm constantly bouncing logic off my office neighbors.
If I got two, what would the second be?
On-site Customer
Why?
Guidance, I suppose... keeps ya focused.
Weird Techie Factoid?
I went to college for an Fine Arts degree... how I ended up HERE, I
have no idea... like I said, I lack a natural tendency toward
organization.
Name? Van-Tuan Do
Web site? No
Based in? San Diego
Employed by? Neovi Data Corp.
Industry Experience? 9 years
Project Experience? Development of eBusiness, eCommerce software. Design of Enterprise Framework
Recent Skills? Java (2 yrs), ASP (3yrs), C# (2yrs), Relational DB (7 yrs), UML (5 yrs)
XP experience? 1 project, 6 months
Why I like XP? Neovi is a small company, XP has proved as the most efficient software process. Saw some eBusiness and eCommerce projects failed because of overanalysis and overdesign
If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be? Why?
Rapid Feedback, I want to know what I'm doing is right for customers.
If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
If I got two, it would be simplicity. First choice XP practice would be pair programming, it's fun and productive.
Weird Techie Factoid: Software Engineering with the right (and left) brain!
+ Name? CUONG TRAN
+ Web site? None
+ Based in? San Diego
+ Employed by? Neovi Data Corp.
+ Industry Experience? 9 years
+ Project Experience? Design & Development of Component-Based OO
Framework, Financial, e-Commerce Software, Enterprise Application
Integration.
+ Recent Skills? C# (1 year), Java (2 years), Delphi (8 years),
C/C (11 years)
+ XP experience? 1 year
+ Why I like XP? Light-weight, efficient & productive process
+ If I was allowed only one XP principle, what would it be? Why?
Writing code is not done until unit test is complete, because it
would improve software quality.
+ If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Refactoring, because Design for Change is important.
+ Weird Techie Factoid? None
Brian Janko:
My experience is a mixture of front- and back-end development for websites,
though mostly front-end. I'm trying to move over the "other side" and work
steadily on the back-end, being what I call a "real programmer."
I have no website to show for the moment. I have some domains on some
webhosts and these are places where I experiment or test things or simply
want to park my domains and often use their email addresses.
I have worked Tech Support at EarthLink?, then was the main front-end coder
at WeddingChannel?.com and most recently worked for Knowledge Kids Network
familyedge.com and kidsedge.com. The former tech director at my last
position moved to San Diego, so he might even be on this list. He was
trying to introduce XP practices into the working environment, but I believe
it was hard to switch over. Also, the company's business model was in
constant flux since they were trying to survive the dot com fall-out. It
was hard to get anything going at all there, it seemed to me. Anyway, I did
not quite grasp XP, or refactoring, and all that other stuff, right away,
but I now am developing a better appreciation for its value.
Unforutnately, when I moved down here to San Diego last summer, I found that
the market was very tight and mostly the high-tech end is being advertised
for. Like I said, I have skills going from front-end toward the back-end
and so my mid-level skills are not helping me find jobs to apply for much
less interview for. Therefore, I have been trying to fill in some knowledge
gaps and considering just consulting, or running my own shop, getting my own
clients.
Until I get a job or expand my own business, I probably won't be able to
take advantage of the pair programming aspect of XP, but would like to
employ whatever practices I can, especially test-driven development. I
believe this will speed my learning progress.
I like XP b/c it seems simple and elegant, and efficient. If allowed only
one XP principle it would be testing; if two, I would add refactoring....
(if three, I would probably go for pair programming).
Weird Techie Factoid? I used to be one. But since I was recently
refactoid'd, I think I'm only a weird techie at the moment.
Name?
John Tobler
Web site?
http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/
Based in?
San Diego, CA
Employed by?
http://www.edmin.com/ (Director of Software Engineering).
Industry Experience?
First Fortran IV program in 1962 on IBM 1401.
Project Experience?
Micro to macro.
Recent Skills?
Senior .NET Architect
XP experience?
I was doing XP in Smalltalk before it was even named (thanks to paying attention to Kent Beck's ramblings). I had a lot of fun learning from John Sarkela and some other Smalltalk XP'ers.
Why I like XP?
Actually, these days I fall more in the "agile" camp, as I do not consider the XP techniques to be extreme -- they're normal. As an individual who has committed almost every possible software engineering sin -- and who, hopefully, has learned from these mistakes -- I fully appreciate the need for agile principles and practices. I like "XP" because it works in many of the contexts in which I find myself.
If I was allowed only one XP practice, what would it be? Why?
Without hesitation: test-driven development: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?TestDrivenDevelopment and http://www.testdriven.com/. To me, it's what makes everything else possible.
If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Do the simplest thing that could possibly work: hhttp://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork? (BUG: I had to put something right here to avoid having the period become part of the URL).
The third, for which you didn't ask, would be ...
refactoring: http://www.refactoring.com/.
Weird Techie Factoid?
Well, http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22techie+factoid%22 (BUGS: you have to separate periods from URLs and note that complex URLs do not format properly, they seem to blow up after an ampersand). I was amused to discover that "factoid" appears in several dictionaries: http://onelook.com/?w=factoid&ls=a (BUG). This is not at all "techie" but there is a factoid site at http://www.factoid.org/ (BUG).
Note: I reported some of these site bugs at TextFormattingRules?.
Name? UnnsseKhan
Based in? San Diego, CA
Employed by? Seeking next software development position.
Industry Experience? 4 years
Project Experience? J2EE enterprise application development
Recent Skills? Ruby
XP experience? 5 professional projects under my belt
Why I like XP? Makes software development fun and produces quality software.
If I was allowed only one XP practice, what would it be? Why?
Pair Programming, because two minds are better than one.
If I got two, what would the second be? Why?
Test First / Test Driven Development.
Helps ensure a clean design and sets one up to refactor.
Weird Techie Factoid?
Started programming on a Commodore 64 and Apple //e. :)