“The Bakeoff” :: Design a better cookie
I only heard about this experiment today. Three different groups sat down to try and design the best and heatlhiest cookie possible. Each group using their own “development process”: Open Source, Extreme Programming (XP) and a more traditional and hierarchical approach (dubbed R&D). Unfortunately the New Yorker article is not online, at least I couldn’t find it, but there are plenty of blogs referring to it. Maybe it will show up here at some point.
When I heard about the experiment I was also told that the XP team had won and that made me want to blog about this cookie business. Now that I read some more, as it turns out here and here for example, that was not the case. In fact the XP cookie came out last :(
Well, it’s still an interesting concept so I thought I’d share it. I guess I have no choice now but to say that cookies and software are not the same thing ;)
I couldn’t find this subject being talked about on the XP mailing list but I’m sure it was debated at some point. Must be my search-fu.
Update: The original article is now available online.