Ron Jeffries, Ann Anderson, and Chet Hendrickson
User Stories, Acceptance tests, story estimation
These three chapters focus on three really important aspects of extreme programming which are user stories, acceptance tests, and story estimation. A user story is equivalent to a requirement for a program. Basically, the customer specifies an example of a user interaction which is written on a card. It is then the programmers job to make that example come to life in the program. XP breaks down the entire program into various user stories so that the programmers can handle each individual task separately. Acceptance tests are the specifics of each user story. While the story gives an example of the usage, the acceptance test specifies what exactly the program needs to do. In order for a story to be complete, it must satisfy its own acceptance test. Story estimation is when the programmers try and put point value on each story to estimate the difficulty of that specific requirement. Initially, it is usually not very accurate but as the project moves along, the programmers start to get a feel of how difficult the stories are going to be based on the stories they have already done. Story estimation will help to give a time line to the customer with an estimation of the finish date.
These features of extreme programming are some of my favorite. Having an example of the interaction from the user story allows the programmer to mimic it without having near as much guess work. From the other side, the customer can be extremely specific with the kind of interaction they want when they help approve the user story. Having used this before, it really does help in the overall build of the program. It seemed like the projects are a lot more organized and I feel like I always have a direction to go in. I don't have to figure out what part of the program I need to work on next. I simply just move onto the next user story. Acceptance tests and story estimation go hand in hand with user stories. XP provides benefits to both the customer and the programmers that really isn't matched by other programming methods.
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