[Sussex] Nik's dd / Extreme Programming

[Geoff Teale]

Morning chaps,

First up, Nik, dd, for what you want, sure, do it - you do need to ensure
that the data on /dev/hda doesn't change during the period you are reading
from it - using a seperate disk for swap might be a good idea (this has
obvious performance benefits as well) - you could chroot into a ram disk
with the basic stuff you need if you want to be really sure about disk
access - maybe I'm overcomplicating things (??) 

Right.. onto eXtreme Programming...

Right- for the "Users" on this list (and lets face it guys, if your not a
programmer you're a "User" *puts on asbestos underwear*) - no eXtreme
Programming is not hacking LISP whilst dangling on a rope off K2 - although
I have to admit that those kinds of activities would consitute pretty
extreme programming practices (Almost as seat-of-your pants risky as the
securiy routines Angelo and I were discussing this morning ;) ).

Anyone who's ever been involved in Extreme Programming should check out
todays Dilbert at http://www.dilbert.com :)  It's certainly reminiscent of
my experiences with XP (that the original eXtreme Programming, not some
under-engineered, marketeertastic derivative of Windows 2000).  I would like
to point out that I was Asok in our scenario, not Wally, however I might be
kidding myself - to be honest I was more of the PHB at that time (back in
the old-folky Primark R&D days..).

I have to admit here to actually being a fan of eXtreme Programming, if you
project is of a specific kind it works really well, that kind is as follows:

1. Object Orientated !!!!!
2. Medium-Large team (team >= 8 && team < 30 people)
3. Management who have at least heard of a place called "the real world" and
maybe have even seen a picture in a management summary sometime in the last
ten years.
4. Users / Customers who are actually interested in improving things rather
than just moaning that the new system isn't a carbon copy of the old one.  

I believe all these conditions can be met when you have a paying customer
who has actively decided they need a new system.  In any situation where
there are administrative or secretarial staff involved condition 4 can never
be True, thus I have developed a 3 step methodology for producing software
that satisfies their (eventual) requirements of any new system, it goes like
this:

Step 1
-------
$> cp program.1.2 program.2.0beta

Step 2
------
*wait four months*

Step 3
------
Release program.2.0beta


-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org
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