Chapter 4 Definitions

Question 1

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the democratic team approach

Answer 1

Strengths:
- High-quality code as a consequence of positive attitude towards finding faults
- Particularly good with hard problems
Weaknesses:
- Experience staff resent having their code be appraised by beginners
- Cannot be externally imposed

Question 2

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the classical chief programmer team approach

Answer 2

Strengths:
- Major success of The New York Times project
Weaknesses:
- Impractical

Question 3

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the modified chief programmer approach

Answer 3

Strengths:
- Has had many successes
Weaknesses:
- No success as big as The New York Times project

Question 4

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the modern hierarchical programming team approach

Answer 4

Strengths:
- Team manager structure obviates the need for a chief programmer
- Scales up
- Supports decentralization when needed
Weaknesses:
- Problems can arise unless areas of responsibility of the team manager and team leader are clearly delineated

Question 5

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the synchronize-and-stabilize team approach

Answer 5

Strengths:
- Encourages creativity
- Ensures that a huge number of developers can work towards a common goal
Weaknesses:
- No evidence can be found that this can be used outside of Microsoft

Question 6

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the agile process teams approach

Answer 6

Strengths:
- Programmers do not test their own code
- Knowledge is not lost if one programmer leaves
- Less-experience programmers can learn from others
- Group ownership of code
Weaknesses:
- Still too little evidence regarding its efficacy

Question 7

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the open source teams approach

Answer 7

Strengths:
- Few projects are extremely successful
Weaknesses:
- Narrowly applicable
- Must be led by a superb motivator
- Requires top-caliber participants