Archive - Software Design: Tidy First?

I remember walking to the bus from high school, staring at a Motorola 6800 instruction set manual.

Aug 14 • Kent Beck

Busy is Short Volatility

The brutal tyranny of the Kingman Formula

Aug 13 • Kent Beck

Speculative Short Volatility & Neglectful Short Volatility

Timing is one distinguishing feature of the Tidy First worldview.

Aug 5 • Kent Beck

July 2026

Canon 3X: Explore/Expand/Extract

I’ve started a series of Canon articles where I explain my ideas as plainly & unambiguously as possible—no analogies, no persuasion, just the facts.

Jul 30 • Kent Beck

Long Vol: What is Volatility?

Some basic assumptions:

Jul 22 • Kent Beck

Long Volatility Development

Jul 15 • Kent Beck

The Beginnings of an Idea: XP is Long Volatility

What does this mean?

Jul 14 • Kent Beck

When Complaints Are Good News

Hint--it's in Explore & Expand

Jul 10 • Kent Beck

How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industry

Kent Beck reflects on Agile, TDD, and why building trust—not just generating code—will define the future of software engineering. And why humans …

Published on The Pragmatic Engineer • Jul 2

2:27:00

June 2026

The Cost YAGNI Was Never About

If you think YAGNI is about saving effort, cheap generation should retire it. It doesn't. Here's why.

Jun 25 • Kent Beck

Why So Literal?

On the failure of analogy as a communication device

Jun 23 • Kent Beck

Smalltalk Genie

Closing the circle

Jun 21 • Kent Beck

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