An excellent and detailed review of what looks to be a very interesting book. I definitely need to up my reviewing game if I want to keep up with the likes of Mark Needham.
Pragmatic Learning and Thinking: Book Review at Mark Needham
The difference between Scrum and XP
06-Oct-08
We had a small discussion at work a few days ago about the difference between Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP).
My take on the distinction is that Scrum is essentially a management technique, while XP is essentially a development technique. They certainly have a lot of overlap, but the different emphasis leads to some different recommendations. There’s no “40 hour week” in Scrum, for example.
Jason Yip contends that Scrum stops where actual development work starts.
For interest, a while ago I reviewed both the original book on Scrum and a clutch of XP books for the Java Ranch “bunkhouse”.
A few days ago Apple finally changed the terms of their iPhone development license to allow people to talk (and write) about how to develop software for the iPhone and iPod touch. The Pragmatic Programmers already had a book project waiting in the wings and have made it available as a “beta” available to buy for download now.
No excuse not to get started writing that killer mobile application now!
Can Authors Use Agile Methods?
28-Sep-08
From time to time I toy with the idea of writing a book. One of the things which has put me off is the whole “big project” nature of the task. I am so used to test-driven, small-iteration, early-value working that slogging away for six months or a year on a single task seems particularly daunting.
An interesting possible solution to this is the idea of writing in an agile manner.