Friday, December 3

Google doing BDUF?

From www.developertesting.com

"9:22 Google has focused a lot on the early part of the development process-quality via design and review process. Design documents are required for all non-trivial projects and a formal peer review process is done. All changes to code base require peer review. Strict programming style guidelines and formal initiation to those guidelines for all new engineers. Great code comes from a good early design and review process! Process moves a bit slower because of thise, but quality and end-results are better."

While google have adopted a lot of XP practices such as TDD, it seems there is some formality in the design phase. I wonder how much use they are getting out of the documents they are producing.

(BDUF = Big Design Up Front, see http://xp.c2.com/BigDesignUpFront.html)