Using Extreme Programming in the Software Design Course

Abstract

This is a report on an effort to bring the practices of the Extreme Programming methodology into a Software Design course. Two teams of 11 members followed many of those practices in developing their semester projects. We described the practices required of the development teams, those encouraged, and those that were not easily simulated. Near the end of the semester the students were asked to answer questions about how well each practice had served the process. Summaries and examples of their responses along with the instructor's observations are presented as an evaluation of this approach. The main conclusions are that pair programming is generally powerful and popular, and that it is difficult to make upper level students write tests prior to writing code. Suggestions for what might be done differently to better simulate the Extreme Programming methodology are included. The foremost suggestion is to teach a “test first” approach in all programming courses.