Forest And Desert
The Forest and the Desert is a metaphor for eager about software program
improvement processes, developed by Beth Andres-Beck and hir father Kent Beck.
It posits that two communities of software program builders have nice issue
speaking to one another as a result of they dwell in very totally different contexts, so
recommendation that applies to at least one feels like nonsense to the opposite.
The desert is the frequent world of software program improvement, the place bugs are
plentiful, talent is not cultivated, and communications with customers is troublesome.
The forest is the world of a well-run crew that makes use of one thing like Excessive Programming, the place builders swiftly put modifications into
manufacturing, protected by their assessments, code is invested in to maintain it wholesome,
and there’s common contact with The Buyer.
Clearly Beth and Kent want The Forest (as do I). However the metaphor is extra
about how description of The Forest and the recommendation for the way to work there typically
sounds nonsensical to these whose solely expertise is The Desert. It reminds us
that any classes we draw about software program improvement observe, or architectural
patterns, are ruled by the context that we skilled them. It’s doable
to vary Desert into Forest, however it’s troublesome – typically requiring folks to do
issues which might be each laborious and counter-intuitive. (It appears sadly simpler for
The Forest to undergo desertification.)
On this framing I am undoubtedly a Forest Dweller, and search with Thoughtworks
to domesticate a wholesome forest for us and our shoppers. I work to elucidate The Forest to Desert
Dwellers, and assist my fellow Forest Dwellers to make their forest much more
plentiful.
Acknowledgements
Kent Beck provided the picture, which he might have painstakingly drew pixel by
pixel. Or not.