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Personality Types

I was going through a chapter of Norman Lewis Reading Faster. Here he talks about personality types and their reading habits. And immediately I started to think if there is a link between personality types and XP. Because what is XP but a set of habits that people on the Xp project have. Habit of writing tests first, habit of automating tests, habit of domain design, habit of integrating continuously. Habits and more habits. :-)

But the biggest habit is to be not a perfectionist. The habit of getting along, plugging ahead with whatever you have. So the immediate draw is "Dont be a perfectionist if you have to work on XP Project". But then we form our habits and then we dont want to experience the pain of changing it. And I had a first experience of explaining one of my friends about XP's TDD. He was so much habitutated of being upfront first, he could never get to the point of learning TDD. But then he may be an Xtreme example :-)

Finally the first thing before you venture into agile, you need to find out about your habits. Whether they will help you in your tryst of writing better software (I assume thats the reason why wanna XP). If you are habituated to keep it simple, move ahead, not regress then your transition may be smooth. But if not, you are a perfectionist, upfronter then work on changing your habits and then work on learning XP. I bet you will enjoy the success.

XP many times I feel is not just a way of programming its a way of life. Somewhere I See a higher from lurking, Xtreme Living probably which can be abbreviated to XL. Yes just as XP gives you the chance to XL at programming, so may XL let you xcel in your life. Happy Living. :-)