Why Extreme Programming Matters
More Than Ever
Everyone knows Scrum. And Kanban too. But when was the last time you heard someone say “Extreme Programming” without rolling their eyes?
The Quiet Backbone of Agile
Yet, XP never went away. It just went quiet. Developed in the late 90s by Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, and Ron Jeffries (yes, the same people who signed the Agile Manifesto) during the legendary Chrysler C3 project, XP was always the “Do” part of Agile. While Scrum and Kanban primarily provide frameworks and visualization, XP delivered the actual engineering practices—and it’s precisely these practices that are sorely missed today.
The most essential XP gems, more relevant in 2025 than ever:
-
Communication as the Highest Value
Remote teams, Slack overload, async-only—and yet half the team is working at cross-purposes. XP said: Talk. Constantly. Directly. That was hard in 1999—today, it’s critical for survival. -
Pair Programming (Yes, Really)
Anyone who pairs with Copilot or Cursor today quickly realizes: a second human brain still tops any AI. Targeted pairing for onboarding, complex problems, or code reviews saves days of discussions and bug-fixing rounds. -
Small Steps, Continuous Integration, Relentless Refactoring
Daily commits, green builds, refactoring as the norm—technically easier than ever. And yet, two-week feature branches and merge chaos are standard again. XP had already outlawed this 25 years ago. -
Quality is Not Negotiable
”Done” means: tested, reviewed, deployable. No technical debt to be dealt with “later.” This is exactly what’s missing in most legacy systems and burnout statistics today. -
Discipline Over Heavy Rulebooks
The beauty of XP: it’s pragmatic to the core. But pragmatism only works with discipline. Those who lack it prefer to invent another 400-page framework—which then still isn’t properly adopted.
Consistent, Not Extreme
Extreme Programming was never “extreme.” It was just consistent. In a world where AI writes the simple code, the ability to develop cleanly, quickly, and collaboratively becomes the real differentiator.
It’s time to pull XP out of the mothballs—and finally apply it properly.
References
- Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction
- Kent Beck’s Original XP Book
- The Agile Manifesto
- Martin Fowler on Continuous Integration
- The Chrysler C3 Project Story