Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change

Extreme Programming (XP) is a development methodology that acknowledges that both developers customers matter. It acknowledges that people have strengths and weaknesses, and that it chooses to work with those weaknesses rather than against it. This is in contrast to most of the traditional software development methodologies, where emphasis in placed mostly on processes.

This book provides a balanced introduction and explanation of XP. Even as it espouses the good, it also highlights limitations. The goal of the book, as the title suggests, is mainly the help readers understand XP and to decide for themselves whether it is suitable for what they're doing.

For such a topic, the book is surprisingly easy to read. It is very direct and straight to the point, making it easy to digest in small bites.

This was probably a big deal when it came out but I graduated in 2015 and every job I've had follows most of this stuff already. It's talked about like something that'll blow your mind once you grok it but I think the whole industry has already grokked this book. It did help me understand why no one understands what product we're building and how it mostly doesn't matter because it's ‘agile' to iterate and as long as it's better this year than last year we're all gonna keep our jobs.