_Previously on Locally Sourced: About a year ago, I started this newsletter with a bunch of posts that I originally called XP 2020 and later called Entropy Essays -- you can find [all the posts here](https://noelrappin.com/tags/entropy/). I got bogged down and never got to the punchline..._ There's a common thread...

## Trying to Define Undefinable Terms: The Locally Sourced Story Previously on Locally Sourced: I’ve been writing about XP and Agile. Most recently, [pair programming](/blog/2020/07/entropy-essays-6-pair-programming/). And [how I think about technical decisions](/blog/2020/07/how-i-make-technical-decisions/). I started to write a different essay here, but then I realized that I was sort of depending...

## We hope that 1 + 1 = 3 _Previously on Locally Sourced: I’ve been doing a lot of these oddly titled posts about XP and Agile practices. Like [testing](/blog/2020/05/the-entropy-essays-xp-2020-1-test-speed/). Or [OO](/blog/2020/06/another-entropy-essay-3-flavors-of-object-oriented-design/). I wrote about [inclusion on agile teams](/blog/2020/06/entropy-essays-4-agile-teams-and-inclusion/). And about [team metrics](/blog/2020/07/entropy-essays-5-team-metrics/). Next up: pair programming. And even though...

## Or Why is a Software Team Like A Shortstop _Previously on Locally Sourced: I’ve been writing these Entropy Essays about Agile and XP practices. [Here’s the most recent one](/blog/2020/06/entropy-essays-4-agile-teams-and-inclusion/). You can see the rest [here](/tags/entropy). Tell all your friends and colleagues to [subscribe](https://noelrap.substack.com/subscribe)._ One of the great things about...

## Or: Trust Goes Every Which Way, And Makes Agile Work _Previously on Locally Sourced: I attempted to justify [all this agile stuff](/blog/2020/06/why-am-i-writing-about-xp-and-agile-so-much/). Before that, [more](/blog/2020/06/another-entropy-essay-3-flavors-of-object-oriented-design/) [agile](/blog/2020/06/the-entropy-essays-2-why-did-you-hire-this-test/) [stuff](/blog/2020/05/the-entropy-essays-xp-2020-1-test-speed/). Also, I have a [book out](https://pragprog.com/titles/nrclient/modern-front-end-development-for-rails/), and good marketing practices would suggest I mention that from time to time._ _This time around,...

## I mean, really... _Previously on Locally Sourced: I wrote about an [XP practice](/blog/2020/05/the-entropy-essays-xp-2020-1-test-speed/). Then I wrote about it [some more](/blog/2020/06/the-entropy-essays-2-why-did-you-hire-this-test/). Then I wrote about [a different XP practice](/blog/2020/06/another-entropy-essay-3-flavors-of-object-oriented-design/). Then I wrote about it [some more](/blog/2020/06/object-oriented-design-from-the-90s-or-more-on-domain-vs-technical-modeling/). (Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but a domain metaphor was an XP...

## Maybe more about the past than you needed to know? _Previously on Locally Sourced: I wrote about [kinds of object-oriented design](/blog/2020/06/another-entropy-essay-3-flavors-of-object-oriented-design/). Before that, I asked [why you hired that test](/blog/2020/06/the-entropy-essays-2-why-did-you-hire-this-test/). I didn’t exactly set out to write 1300 words on the history of OO design, but I pulled out...

## Speed matters. But not precisely. There are only two things that matter when thinking about the speed of your automated tests: * How fast can you run the relevant set of tests to let the tests be helpful in development? * How fast can you run a complete, green...

[Charles Max Wood](http://www.twitter.com/cmaxw) posted this on Twitter: > Am I misunderstanding agile? or is it inappropriate to try to peg velocity? > > — Charles Max Wood (@cmaxw) [October 26, 2012](https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/261822726455558145) > @[noelrap](https://twitter.com/noelrap) They’re telling us we behind on the sprint. My understanding of agile is velocity is set by...

I've been working on my tutorial session for [WindyCityRails](http://windycityrails.org/) ([tickets still available](http://windycityrails.org/register/)...). The session is about how to test when you are working in a legacy app that doesn't have tests. Naturally, that requires some legacy code for the attendees to work with during the tutorial. My own worst Rails...

While I'm [commemorating anniversaries](/2010/06/23/apple-intern-1995/) this summer, I just remembered another one. Ten years ago this summer was when I first read the original Kent Beck "white book", _[Extreme Programming Explained](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658?ie=UTF8&tag=10prinhell-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0321278658)_, which is one of only a couple of books that completely changed the way I approach whatever it is that...

Not much time this morning, not many accumulated links. So just a little bit today. ### Book Status Still writing the new parts of the legacy coding chapter, last night a little bit on removing dependencies. I think only one more section to go before that's a complete draft. Next...

Repeating yourself is clearly an occupational hazard of blogging. I've been trying to put together a post about pair programming for a while. Somewhat randomly, I found myself wandering through my blog archives at Pathfinder, and I came across [this little essay](http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2009/09/a-pair-of-kings-beats-a-single-ace-pair-programming-agile-rails-and-you/), which was the last thing I wrote at...

### Update Beta 4 of Rails Test Prescriptions is now available, with two new chapters, one on Rcov and coverage in general, and one on writing better tests. Buy [here](http://www.pragprog.com/titles/nrtest/rails-test-prescriptions). While I'm in the self-promoting mode, the book is also available for pre-order at [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934356646?ie=UTF8&tag=10prinhell-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1934356646) and other exciting locations. ###...

### Top Story Thoughtbot talks about [their plans for Shoulda](http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/701863189/shoulda-rails3-and-beyond) moving forward. The big takeaway is that, while the context library will be separated out for use in Test::Unit, both Shoulda style and Shoulda effort will be focused on RSpec integration. I have some complicated thoughts about this one. I'm...

### Book Status The Cucumber chapter is nearing final edit for beta. I cleared up a handful of errata, of which probably the most serious was a mistake on how to get the fixture data to pass the first test in the book. I'm hoping to get Beta 3 out...

### Top Story [JRuby 1.5 is out](http://jruby.org/2010/05/12/jruby-1-5-0.html). Highlights include improved Rails 3 support, better support for Windows, better FFI support, better startup time (yay!) and a lot of other tweaks and fixes. ### Book Update Still Cucumbering, hope to finish today. The book is still [on sale](http://www.pragprog.com/titles/nrtest/rails-test-prescriptions), of course. And...

### Top Story As part of the Chirp conference, Twitter and the Library of Congress jointly [announced](http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/) that the Library will be storing Twitter's entire public archive. I'm sure your expecting an easy joke about how many sandwiches the LoC now knows about in their archive, or about how scholarly...

### Top Story iPads. Lots of them popping up in and around work. Probably some more coherent impressions coming later. Wait, once again, Twitter has a big announcement after I start writing this. This time, they are going to start placing ads in the Twitter stream in various ways to...

### Top Story For a while, it looked like the top story was going to be Apple's [new developer Rule 3.3.1, described here by John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331). More on that in a second. But the real top story is the news that [Twitter has bought Tweetie](http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/twitter-for-iphone.html), intending to rebrand it as...

And now some testimony from Brother Nicely-Nicely Johnson, I mean, James Turner, from [O'Reilly Radar](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/12/the-best-and-the-worst-tech-of.html): > **The Cult of Scrum:** > If Agile is the teachings of Jesus, Scrum is every abuse ever perpetrated in his name. In many ways, Scrum as practiced in most companies today is the antithesis...

In true blog form, a declarative statement: **Hear ye, hear ye! Any so-called Agile team that ever tries to translate "points" into actual units of time is presumed dysfunctional until proven otherwise.** You've done it, I've done it, we've all done it. Doesn't make it a good idea. In the...

New post on the Pathfinder site. I had fun writing this one. It's on some lesser known variants of test-driven development. [http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2008/02/lesser-known-te.html](http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2008/02/lesser-known-te.html)

Two things on the Pathfinder blog. - [Agile Publishing](http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2007/11/agile-publishin.html), on publishing experiences and agile methods. - [Live Ruby: Testbed](http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2007/11/live-ruby-testb.html), an attempt to work through a small test and metaprogramming problem live and on the blog. Enjoy.s

Another blog post up on the Pathfinder site. This one is about Agile in general, and features what I think is the World Blog Premiere of the soon to be famous Boring Software Manifesto. [Enjoy](http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2007/09/agile-the-contr.html).

My first post to one of Pathfinder's official blogs is up, it's a companion piece to the blog post here on Test-Driven Development, and you can find it [here](http://blogs.pathf.com/techdev/2007/08/test-driven-dev.html).

Of course, since I muse in an agile way, I reserve the right to change my mind based on future developments... Software development usually takes place in a complex environment where your goal can change quickly. In general, there are two ways to deal with a complex environment. One is...

Three posts that caught my eye today. #### Ruby School Gregory Brown over on O'Reilly net [has an article about using Ruby in Computer Science courses](http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/05/ruby_academically_viable.html), at least in later algorithm classes. It's not a bad argument, but I think it'd be more convincing if the Ruby example was a...

Of all the exciting ideas and revelations that came from Kent Beck's original XP book, Test-First Programming has been the one that most significantly affected the way I work on a day-to-day basis. I love programming test-first. It's a great way to take a large, amorphous task and solve it...