Kent Beck Quotes & Sayings

Developer testing is an important step towards accountability. It gives developers a way to demonstrate the quality of the software they produce. — Kent Beck

If there are forms of testing, like stress and load testing, that find defects after development is "complete," bring them into the development cycle. Run load and stress tests continuously and automatically. — Kent Beck

Folk wisdom in software development teaches that interfaces shouldn't be unduly influenced by implementations. Writing a test first is a concrete way to achieve this separation. — Kent Beck

I don't like the feeling, but I've got to say that a little fear makes me a more focused, more responsible programmer. — Kent Beck

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, How would I develop if it were my money? I'm amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question. — Kent Beck

First a small team writes a small system. Then they find the natural fracture lines and divide the system into relatively independent parts for expansion. The architects help choose the most appropriate fracture lines and then follow the system as a whole, keeping the big picture in mind as the groups focus on their smaller section. — Kent Beck

Learning research tells us that the time lag from experiment to feedback is critical ... — Kent Beck

Saying that programmers should just accomplish twice as much doesn't work. They can gain skills and effectiveness, but they cannot get more done on demand. More time at the desk does not equal increased productivity for creative work. — Kent Beck

A plan is an example of what could happen, not a prediction of what will happen. — Kent Beck

the XP strategy is "design always. — Kent Beck

I think it's a combination of technical and social factors that leads to all the defects in deployed software. — Kent Beck

The problem is, in software design, often the consequences of your decisions don't become apparent for years. — Kent Beck

When Pandora doesn't pay, and bars don't pay, and weddings don't pay, and nobody buys CDs or shirts or concert tickets or lessons, then the musician can't make a living making music. — Kent Beck

The system metaphor is a story that everyone
customers, programmers, and managers
can tell about how the system works. — Kent Beck

Responsible Development shares many practices with XP but the roots are different. Responsible Development's values are honesty, transparency, accountability and responsibility. These lead me to pairing, test-first, incremental design, continuous integration and so on because they support the values. — Kent Beck

Agitator and the Agitar Management Dashboard lower the barriers to accountability in software development and increase the value of developer testing. — Kent Beck

If you're having trouble succeeding, fail. — Kent Beck

We could talk, act, and dress funny. We were excused for socially inappropriate behavior: 'Oh, he's a programmer'. It was all because we knew this technology stuff that other people found completely mystifying. — Kent Beck

The business changes. The technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn't change, per se, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is the inability to cope with change when it comes. — Kent Beck

I used Agitator on some code I had unit-tested, and it made me a better tester. As an Agitar Fellow, I look forward to the leverage of working with an outstanding organization as together we continue to improve the value of developer testing. — Kent Beck

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment. — Kent Beck

Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature. — Kent Beck

However, most defects end up costing more than it would have cost to prevent them. Defects are expensive when they occur, both the direct costs of fixing the defects and the indirect costs because of damaged relationships, lost business, and lost development time. — Kent Beck

If testing costs more than not testing, then don't test. — Kent Beck

I've known people who have not mastered their tools who are good programmers, but not a tool master who remained a mediocre programmer. — Kent Beck

Responsibility cannot be assigned; it can only be accepted. If someone tries to give you responsibility, only you can decide if you are responsible or if you aren't. — Kent Beck

First you learn the value of abstraction, then you learn the cost of abstraction, then you're ready to engineer. — Kent Beck

I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits. — Kent Beck

Received wisdom is that if you spend time up front getting the design right, you avoid costs later. But the longer you spend getting the design right, the more your upfront costs are, and the longer it takes for the software to start earning. — Kent Beck

Of the four project development variables - scope, cost, time and quality - quality isn't really a free variable. The only possible values are "excellent" and "insanely excellent", depending on whether lives are at stake. — Kent Beck

I tell people to start implementing when they are pretty sure there aren't more important stories out there. An iteration's worth of data is worth months of speculation. — Kent Beck

Without planning, we are individuals with haphazard connections and effectiveness. We are a team when we plan and work in harmony. — Kent Beck

I lived near Santa Cruz for ten years, and the whole time, it bothered me what an exclusionary definition of 'inclusion' was in force. Social censure was applied to those who expressed unpopular or uncomfortable ideas. — Kent Beck

Make it work, make it right, make it fast. — Kent Beck

My great-grandfather played organ for silent movies. Talkies in, Gramps out. — Kent Beck

People are looking for software development that actually does something useful ... People are looking for partners who deliver when promised, and at a reasonable and transparent price. I believe that the days of being able to value price software are numbered. — Kent Beck

Testing is not the point. The point is about responsibility. — Kent Beck

There are musicians who want to make a living making music. There are listeners who want to listen to music. Complicating this relationship is a whole bunch of history: some of the music I want to listen to was made a while ago in a different economy. Some of the models of making a living making music are no longer valid but persist. — Kent Beck

The world is changing, and I believe that, if I want to stay employed as a programmer, I'm going to have to change with it. — Kent Beck

Design should be easy in the sense that every step should be obviously and clearly identifiable. Simplify elements to make change simple so you can manage the technical risk. — Kent Beck

Without the adjustment, you are working under a lie. Everyone knows it and has to hide to protect themselves. This is no way to get good software done and deployed; — Kent Beck

There's a huge latent market for software development that's just flat-out honest. — Kent Beck

One of the advantages of having to live with JUnit for 8 years is now we can look back and see which decisions we made worked nicely and which we would have done differently. — Kent Beck

McConnell writes, "In ten years the pendulum has swung from 'design everything' to 'design nothing.' But the alternative to BDUF [Big Design Up Front] isn't no design up front, it's a Little Design Up Front (LDUF) or Enough Design Up Front (ENUF)." This is a strawman argument. The alternative to designing before implementing is designing after implementing. — Kent Beck

Cards on a wall is a way of practicing transparency, valuing and respecting the input of each team member. The project manager has the task of translating the cards into whatever format is expected by the rest of the organization. — Kent Beck

Beta testing is a symptom of weak testing practices and poor communication with customers. — Kent Beck

There is a strong movement towards increased accountability for software developers and software development organizations. — Kent Beck

Brilliance in a scientist does not consist in being right more often but in being wrong about more interesting topics. — Kent Beck

If I'd had a charisma-ectomy in the beginning, XP would have gone nowhere. — Kent Beck

Sheet music, recording, radio, television, cassettes, CD burners, and file sharing have all invalidated, to some extent, the old model of making a living making music. — Kent Beck

The marketing of XP is very deliberate and conscious. Part of it is in co-opting the power of the media; I make sure I'm newsworthy from time to time. Part is in co-opting some of my publisher's ad budget. — Kent Beck

Extreme programming is an emotional experience. — Kent Beck

Listening, Testing, Coding, Designing. That's all there is to software. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. — Kent Beck

The community isn't nearly as afraid as it thinks it is. — Kent Beck

How good the design is doesn't matter near as much as whether the design is getting better or worse. If it is getting better, day by day, I can live with it forever. If it is getting worse, I will die. — Kent Beck

A rational model of software is to design it quickly - the economic pressure to improvise presents an interesting challenge. — Kent Beck

Used Pluggable Adaptor, which we promise not to use again for four months, minimum, because it makes code hard to statically analyze. — Kent Beck

Organizations want small changes in functionality on a more regular basis. An organization like Flickr deploys a new version of its software every half hour. This is a cycle that feeds on itself. — Kent Beck

Code wants to be simple ... I had to give up the idea that I had the perfect vision of the system to which the system had to conform. Instead, I had to accept that I was only the vehicle for the system expressing its own desire for simplicity. My vision could shape initial direction, and my attention to the desires of the code could affect how quickly and how well the system found its desired shape, but the system is riding me much more than I am riding the system. — Kent Beck

The XP philosophy is to start where you are now and move towards the ideal. From where you are now, could you improve a little bit? — Kent Beck

I found out that most programmers don't like to test their software as intensely as I do. — Kent Beck