Notes on talk by Ward Cunningham at the Seattle XP Meeting
Title Slide: On the Courage to Wait for Brilliance
Or as he said, "How to look busy when you haven't got a clue."
Sometimes decisions are uncomfortable, cause fear and doubt. These are high leverage moments, moments when breakthroughs happen. Look for these moments and use them.
Thesaurus Pattern: use the right name. Reflect on the ultimate role of the object, use the thesaurus and select a systematic name. Because people make assumptions about words, people will assume a behavior based on the name.
Ward used Hypercard as his first Wiki. It had a section on the card where you could enter associated links with a button to go to that link. If the card wasn't created yet the button would fail and beep at the user. So the button had a script for when the user was still holding the button down, it would create the new card, it was a natural effect of the user on hearing the beep to just press the mouse button longer and harder, therefore making a new card. The cards also had the reverse search at the title and recent changes.
Fatigue is causes self-doubt and cripples decision making. Work in pairs, pace your work, find words to express the aspects of the situation.
Episode Failure: Why developers can't get over the mountain of a problem.
Retreat: Give up and go find an off the shelf software package.
Fog of War: Can't see the top of the Mountain so give up. Use unit testing to know where the top is.
Academic Satisfaction: Made it to the top of the mountain but didn't follow through and complete the project.
What are you afraid of?
- Slipping your Schedule?
- Frustrating your Customer?
- Exposing your Stupidity?
The Refactoring Metaphor -- Complexity is like Debt.
Skipped Design is like Borrowed Money
Maintenance Headaches is like Interest Payments
Refactoring code is like Debt Payment
Engineering Policy is like Financial Policy
Are you going to borrow a lot of money and keep making interest payments or are you going to pay down your debt?
Crisis Programming
Don't give up XP when you are confronted by an unexpected high priority demand. Use "large pairs" of more than two programmers.
Every line of production code is done in pairs. It is the two of you against the computer.
Work at a sustainable pace,be fresh in the morning, this is the new name for the 40 hour week.
Weekly self assess the 12 practices with a 1 to 5 score. The score is unimportant, the discussion about the score is important. This was actually a comment from the audience that Ward agreed with.
Ward's Extreme Programming Roadmap
This was a great talk, and Vulcan looks like a neat place to work. -- JeffSandys
Because of the Non-disclosure agreement required to attend the WardCunningham talk at Vulcan some conscientious members of SeaPig did not attend. BrianDorsey set up a DinnerWithWard in a tatami room of a Japanese restaurant in the international district.
[Chinese Weekly]
[Oni Japanese]