Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature.

Responsible Development shares many practices with XP but the roots are different. Responsible Development's values are honesty, transparency, accountability and responsibility. These lead me to pairing, test-first, incremental design, continuous integration and so on because they support the values.

Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature.

If you're having trouble succeeding, fail.

Of the four project development variables - scope, cost, time and quality - quality isn't really a free variable. The only possible values are "excellent" and "insanely excellent", depending on whether lives are at stake.

I don't like the feeling, but I've got to say that a little fear makes me a more focused, more responsible programmer.

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment.