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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Media mis-reporting - again
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In an SDTimes article, Andrew Binstock shows that minimal research is just beyond him. He's correct about the uptake of XP in IT shops - it's not a commonly used methodology. A lot of this is cultural - management likes paper trails, and the popular RUP guarantees lots of it. That's not the rathole Binstock runs down though - in talking about XP, he says this
Second, XP was embarrassed by the cancellation of the C3 project at Chrysler. This project was the poster child for XP. It was begun in 1996 with the mission of getting Chrysler's payroll off its mainframes in time for Y2K. Kent Beck, the father of XP, was brought in , and he implemented XP and made the project a showcase of the new methodology. Alas, Chrysler cancelled C3 in February 2000. The deadline had been missed, and the mainframes were still cranking at full tilt to handle Chrysler's payroll. With Beck running the show, there is no wiggle room for asserting that XP wasn't done correctly.
I guess Binstock's a busy guy - because he clearly didn't contact any of the people associated with that project. I've spoken to many of them, at different times and in different places. The C3 project went down for the same reasons that most IT projects go down - politics. I'm sure that SDTimes provides internet access for the staff - Binstock could have googled the email addresses (or even hunted around the C2 Wiki a little) and found this explanation of the issues. I guess it was easier to throw rocks at something he doesn't like though - facts would just get in the way...
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