Kent Beck Quotes

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

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.

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

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

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

Testing is not the point. The point is about responsibility.

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.

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.

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

Make it work, make it right, make it fast.

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

Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature.

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.

If you're having trouble succeeding, fail.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I mean, source code in files; how quaint, how seventies!

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