Short Iterations

We use a three-week “iteration”, into which the project is time-boxed. User stories were broken down into engineering tasks. If an engineering task appears to require more than one engineering week, it must be broken down further.

Engineers estimate their…

Functional Tests

On C3, there are also literally hundreds of functional tests, which test the system from end to end, input files to output files. The test cases were defined by the users, and developed by a separate team whose job was…

Frequent Release

Our development teams typically release their software at least once per day. Yes, release. Yes, at least once per day.

We have found that when developers sit on code for more than a day, it is usually because they are…

ENVY Discipline

Here’s a quick list of ENVY guidelines:

Always work under the name of one of the two people presently pairing. If you are logged in as someone else, everyone will have trouble sorting out where your code is.
Version frequently.

…

No, Wait! Do it in an Object to Begin With!

EXAMPLE

Just this weekend, I went through the inspector / workspace / object cycle with a partner. We had damaged the database and needed to remove the damaged objects. We inspected until we understood what was going on. Then we…

No, Wait! Do it in a Workspace!

No, wait! The problem with what we just did (in an inspector) is that it isn’t reproducible. We have no way to save a record of what we have done. If this task, or one like it, ever has…

Introduction

The C3 project team has voluntarily adopted a large number of practices. Every team member follows these practices closely. We have found that designing, coding, and testing in a consistent way means that the team becomes quite well integrated and that team members know just what they can expect from each other. Software quality is kept more uniform, and at a high level.

The Four Project Values

Simplicity + Communication + Testing = Aggressiveness