Bugs Bunny vs the Tasmanian Devil.
Each development project is the road that our characters run down in those Warner Bros
cartoons.
Bugs is much like FDD.
He runs down that road in the most optimal manner possible (domain modelling, upfront design/test reviews etc) .
Taz is much like XP.
He moves very fast indeed, but never apparently in a straight line.
He spins all over the place, but never always in a forward direction.
All that XP continuous changing/discarding of code and tests, is that what the
spinning is ??
And he spins so fast we cannot see what he is doing. Is that what XP means by
"velocity" ??
And does not Bugs always emerge as the winner at the end ...
Cute analogy
Cute analogy but the conclusion is not necessarily true. XP has strenghs and weakness. So does FDD, SCRUM, UDSP, DSDM, etc,etc. I don't believe there is a single process that is better than all others in every possible circumstance. I love FDD; its the way I prefer to do development but I can still build quality software using other processes if I have to. I spent years working on significant projects that delivered software on time and within budget before I encountered FDD. IMHO A bunch of clueless morons executing FDD to the letter are far less likely to be successsful than a team of good developers following XP. It's not the process - it's the people ... and it's not just technical ability, its also about being able to play well in a team too.
level playing filed comparison
> IMHO A bunch of clueless morons executing FDD to the letter are far > less likely to be successsful than a team of good developers
> following XP.
Call this "failure(FDD)" .
And the converse(morons following XP + good following FDD) ,
failure(XP) .
Is failure(XP) very much greater than failure(FDD) ??
One suspects so, simply because whether FDD is being used by morons
or good, it at least as the controls of traditional s/w development
(something that helps FDD) . XP in the hand of morons does not.