The Forest and the Desert is a metaphor for desirous about software program
improvement processes, developed by Beth Anders-Beck and her father Kent Beck.
It posits that two communities of software program builders have nice problem
speaking to one another as a result of they dwell in very completely different contexts, so
recommendation that applies to 1 appears 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 staff that makes use of one thing like Excessive Programming, the place builders swiftly put modifications into
manufacturing, protected by their checks, code is invested in to maintain it wholesome,
and there may be common contact with The Buyer.
Clearly Beth and Kent desire The Forest (as do I). However the metaphor is extra
about how description of The Forest and the recommendation for 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 apply, or architectural
patterns, are ruled by the context that we skilled them. It’s potential
to alter Desert into Forest, nevertheless it’s troublesome – typically requiring individuals to do
issues which might be each exhausting and counter-intuitive. (It appears sadly simpler for
The Forest to undergo desertification.)
On this framing I am positively a Forest Dweller, and search with Thoughtworks
to domesticate a wholesome forest for us and our shoppers. I work to clarify The Forest to Desert
Dwellers, and assist my fellow Forest Dwellers to make their forest much more
plentiful.
Acknowledgements
Kent Beck equipped the picture, which he might have painstakingly drew pixel by
pixel. Or not.
