This doesn't really sound like good methodology for game programming. Someone said it is meant to involve the client in all steps of the process, but the clients of a game are the gamers aren't they? This seems as though it would be very difficult to coordinate since every gamer has his/her own ideas on how features should be done.
It seems more suited to independant component programming. Probably done by a small team for a larger organization.
Extreme Programming? (XP)
Quote:Original post by petewoodQuote:Original post by ApochPiQ
Adjusting XP's methodology can be deadly. This should explain more about what I mean here.
See (XP guy) Ron Jeffries' review of their book
Is it really so surprising? Think about who is writing here. Now compare this with people who have real industry experience and have seen real XP failures in real life. Jeffries is defending his pet methodology in a purely theoretical context, while there is ample evidence from real life that shows that XP is broken fundamentally. I'm all for being informed on both sides of the issue; by no means do I want to drown out any dissenting views. However, when weighing the opinions of all of these people, it is crucial to view them in context and give them proper weighting. Jeffries is, in that review, trying to defend his turf, and that inherently makes his claims subject to a higher level of scrutiny.
Quote:Original post by Alex
It seems more suited to independant component programming. Probably done by a small team for a larger organization.
Well, that's what a lot of XP advocates would say as well. In general, though, real life isn't that clear cut. XP is getting applied to an awful lot of situations where it is absolutely useless, and even in the highly specific cases where it might work, there are far better methods out there.
Anyways, sorry to derail this into a methodology war [wink] For game development at least XP (in its pure forms) is not going to do the job. Impure XP is highly dangerous, as described in the article I linked earlier. There's an awful lot of hype, and a lot of very rabid defenders of the XP approach, but for what we do here (game development) I don't feel that it is really worth the time.
Quote:Original post by Alex
This doesn't really sound like good methodology for game programming. Someone said it is meant to involve the client in all steps of the process, but the clients of a game are the gamers aren't they? This seems as though it would be very difficult to coordinate since every gamer has his/her own ideas on how features should be done.
No, the client is the game designer.
Quote:Original post by liquiddark
Having said the above, XP has been leveraged by some teams in the game industry.
ld
Eg this article on Gamasutra
Quote:Original post by ApochPiQQuote:Original post by petewoodQuote:Original post by ApochPiQ
Adjusting XP's methodology can be deadly. This should explain more about what I mean here.
See (XP guy) Ron Jeffries' review of their book
Is it really so surprising? Think about who is writing here... Jeffries is, in that review, trying to defend his turf, and that inherently makes his claims subject to a higher level of scrutiny.
Have you read the review? He is open to balanced criticism and welcomes any suggestions for how to improve the XP methods. He says it is a shame the book drowns its good ideas in misinformation. Many of the people involved in XP are very open to balanced discussion rather than polarising camps. Look at Ward's Wiki. Saying "Is it really so surprising? Think about who is writing here" is implying that Ron Jeffries wouldn't be a balanced person. It's quite silly really to make that your starting point.
The culture of Wikis, Patterns, XP, Refactoring is a group of people who have lots of experience and above all talk about it. I'm not sure what's so threating about that.
Yes, I read the review - very carefully. I'm not making anything my starting point, nor being threatened, or anything else you seem to be trying to imply. All I'm saying is that, after all, Jeffries is defending his own work in a very real sense. Surely you know how that works; it is very easy, when someone finds fault with you, to go down the road of "well, hold on! I didn't really meant that..." and then adjust your statements to try to be more agreeable, or more credible. From the very beginning, the review talks about how XPR "goes to... pains not to understand, to take out of context, and to distort." The entire review is marked with sure signs that Jeffries is pulling the "you misunderstood me" routine. I should recognize it - I do it all the time myself.
I'm not trying to say that his statements are invalid, or anything of the kind - simply that his position as a major figure in the XP world makes him a little bit less objective, whether he and his fan club want to admit it or not. We're human beings, and nice warm fuzzy words about being open-minded aside, we don't take kindly to people picking on our pet theories. Jeffries is no different in this regard.
I noticed that article is nearly a year old, and the team was just beginning to look at the XGD concept when it was written. I'd be interested in seeing some followups or postmortems to find out how their experiment went.
I'm not trying to say that his statements are invalid, or anything of the kind - simply that his position as a major figure in the XP world makes him a little bit less objective, whether he and his fan club want to admit it or not. We're human beings, and nice warm fuzzy words about being open-minded aside, we don't take kindly to people picking on our pet theories. Jeffries is no different in this regard.
Quote:Original post by petewood
Eg this article on Gamasutra
I noticed that article is nearly a year old, and the team was just beginning to look at the XGD concept when it was written. I'd be interested in seeing some followups or postmortems to find out how their experiment went.
Quote:Original post by ApochPiQQuote:Original post by Alex
So in other words, you start building it before you figure out what you want built, then adjust it as you go?
Basically, yes.
Basically, no.
You start out with an idea of what a component should be able to provide. You come up with this by chatting with your client (this may be other programmers, the game designer, your artists or even yourself). You come up with some examples of how the software is used. These are sometimes called UserStories as they are simple descriptions of how someone would use a component.
You write tests for a component to fulfill the user story
You fill in the gaps to make the tests pass
You refactor.
This is very simplified but is also very close to the whole truth.
In theory, yes. But in practice, unless you have the discipline and experience in software design to adhere to the theory, it very, very, very rarely works out that way. Again, see the articles I've linked. I've seen programmers jump onto the XP bandwagon and get run over by it.
XP is like socialism. It's a fine theory, but it doesn't account for reality - and the reality is very, very ugly. Just because it works sometimes doesn't mean it is a good methodology. Again, there are far better approaches out there which do not suffer from the risks and shortcomings of XP, nor do they encourage poor programming habits among those who don't fully understand the XP "theory."
XP is like socialism. It's a fine theory, but it doesn't account for reality - and the reality is very, very ugly. Just because it works sometimes doesn't mean it is a good methodology. Again, there are far better approaches out there which do not suffer from the risks and shortcomings of XP, nor do they encourage poor programming habits among those who don't fully understand the XP "theory."
Quote:Original post by ApochPiQ
Simply that his position as a major figure in the XP world makes him a little bit less objective, whether he and his fan club want to admit it or not.
Who would be acceptably objective enough for you?
I'm not part of any fan club but would seem to be labelled as such if I said I thought XP made sense and enjoyed using it.
There are other books which critique XP that Ron Jeffries recommends reading. As I say it's silly to disregard his view on a book which is all about a practice with which he is totally familiar.
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