XP is my attempt to reconcile humanity and productivity in my practice of software development and to share that reconciliation. I have begun to notice that the more humanely I treat myself and others, the more productive we all become.
When I first heard the term XP I couldn’t help picturing the classic hacker locked in a basement, coding at unmatched speed with forbidden techniques known only to a privileged few.
XP focuses on improving human relationships so that the improvement shows in the code, reducing bottlenecks and delivering more often. So yes, you could say that in the end you work faster, but it is very far from the hacker fantasy I had in my head.
We can say that XP is a set of values, principles and practices that focus on the heart of the machine and try to reconcile humanity and productivity, using techniques to prepare for and face change in an agile way, based mainly on feedback loops and continuous delivery of value.
In this post I will try to briefly summarise the values, principles and practices of XP.