_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...

## Who doesn't love a taxonomy? _Previously on Locally Sourced: We talked about [test speed](/blog/2020/05/the-entropy-essays-xp-2020-1-test-speed/), and we asked [why you hired that test](/blog/2020/06/the-entropy-essays-2-why-did-you-hire-this-test/)? If you like this kind of thing, [tell a friend or colleague](https://noelrap.substack.com/subscribe)._ One thing that I see a lot in online discussion of programming styles is the...

_Previously On Locally Sourced: The Entropy Essays are a series of essays about how programming practices inspired by Extreme Programming such as testing, pair programing, and object-oriented design play out on modern web projects. The first one was [about test speed](/blog/2020/05/the-entropy-essays-xp-2020-1-test-speed/). And eventually we’ll get to why they are called...

## 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...