Five XP Practices for Agile Development

Five development practices compose the core of Extreme Programming (XP)—automating the build for continuously integrating software as it is written, collaborating with team members through pair programming, practicing agile design skills that enable testability, using test first development to drive design, and refactoring code to reduce technical debt. Together, these five technical disciplines are proving to be essential for sustained success with agile development. However, many teams haven’t been exposed to the benefits of these practices or understand how to use them effectively. David Bernstein explores these engineering practices and their use in reducing risk and building quality in at every level of the development process. He makes the business case for these practices by showing how they address the inherent risks and challenges of building software. David then examines how XP practices address the core issues of software development by helping us “build the right thing” and “build the thing right.”