Software development projects can be fun, productive, and even daring. Yet they can consistently deliver value to a business and remain under control.Extreme Programming (XP) was conceived and developed to address the specific needs of software development conducted by small teams in the face of vague and changing requirements. This new lightweight methodology challenges many conventional tenets, including the long-held assumption that the cost of changing a piece of software necessarily rises dramatically over the course of time. XP recognizes that projects have to work to achieve this reduction in cost and exploit the savings once they have been earned.

Fundamentals of XP include:

* Distinguishing between the decisions to be made by business interests and those to be made by project stakeholders. * Writing unit tests before programming and keeping all of the tests running at all times. * Integrating and testing the whole system-several times a day. * Producing all software in pairs, two programmers at one screen. * Starting projects with a simple design that constantly evolves to add needed flexibility and remove unneeded complexity. * Putting a minimal system into production quickly and growing it in whatever directions prove most valuable.

Kent Beck’s eXtreme Programming eXplained provides an intriguing high-level overview of the author’s Extreme Programming (XP) software development methodology. Written for IS managers, project leaders, or programmers, this guide provides a glimpse at the principles behind XP and its potential advantages for small- to mid-size software development teams.The book intends to describe what XP is, its guiding principles, and how it works. Simply written, the book avoids case studies and concrete details in demonstrating the efficacy of XP. Instead, it demonstrates how XP relies on simplicity, unit testing, programming in pairs, communal ownership of code, and customer input on software to motivate code improvement during the development process. As the author notes, these principles are not new, but when they’re combined their synergy fosters a new and arguably better way to build and maintain software. Throughout the book, the author presents and explains these principles, such as “rapid feedback” and “play to win,” which form the basis of XP.

Generally speaking, XP changes the way programmers work. The book is good at delineating new roles for programmers and managers who Beck calls “coaches.” The most striking characteristic of XP is that programmers work in pairs, and that testing is an intrinsic part of the coding process. In a later section, the author even shows where XP works and where it doesn’t and offers suggestions for migrating teams and organizations over to the XP process.

Preface How much would you pay for a software development team that would do what you want? Wait, don’t answer yet–what if they could also tell you how much it would cost, so that you could decide what to do and what to defer, on your way to your deadline? You also get quality software, a robust array of tests that support the project through its entire lifecycle, and an up-to-date, clear view of project status. Best of all, you get the ability to change your mind about what you want, at any time.

There aren’t any silver bullets in software development, and there probably never will be. However, Extreme Programming is a simple set of common-sense practices that, when used together, really can give you much of what you just read in the paragraph above. In this book, we tell you what the XP practices are, and how to install them in your project.

We are software developers. We have been involved in many successful projects, and even in some that weren’t so successful. The successful ones were a lot more fun, for us, and for our customers. The unsuccessful ones have taught us a great deal about software development.

We have had the privilege of working on a great project, with a great teacher, Kent Beck. We helped shape the software process named Extreme Programming, XP for short. Since then, we have been helping everyone who will listen to learn from our experience.

Though most programmers use two or more languages, they usually have a mastery of one. Although Microsoft has advertised that the .NET runtime is language agnostic and that C# and Visual Basic .NET are so close that switching between the two is really quite easy, that?s only true up to a point. Some of the differences are obvious, but others are very subtle. C# & VB.NET Conversion Pocket Reference helps you easily make the switch from one language to another. The differences occur in three main areas: syntax, object-oriented principles, and the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Syntax concerns the statements and language elements. Object oriented differences are less obvious, and concern differences in implementation and feature sets between the two languages. IDE differences include things like compiler settings or attributes. There is also a fourth area of difference: language features that are present in one language but have no equivalent in the other. These unique language features are also covered in this book. C# & VB.NET Conversion Pocket Reference is a perfect companion for documents and books that don?t have examples using your mastered language. Author Jose Mojica expects that you know one of the two languages, but does not make an assumption about which one. He presents the information in a language-neutral point of view so that programmers from either background can read a section and feel that it is targeted to them.

Visual Basic .NET is a radically new version of Microsoft Visual Basic, the world’s most widely used rapid application development (RAD) package. Whether you are just beginning application development with Visual Basic .NET or are already deep in code, you will appreciate just how easy and valuable the VB.NET Language Pocket Reference is. VB.NET Language Pocket Reference contains a concise description of all language elements by category. These include language elements implemented by the Visual Basic compiler, as well as all procedures and functions implemented in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace. Use it anytime you want to look up those pesky details of Visual Basic syntax or usage. With concise detail and no fluff, you’ll want to take this book everywhere.