The Forest and the Desert is a metaphor for fascinated by 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 reside in very totally different contexts, so
recommendation that applies to at least one seems like nonsense to the opposite.
The desert is the widespread world of software program improvement, the place bugs are
plentiful, ability is not cultivated, and communications with customers is tough.
The forest is the world of a well-run group that makes use of one thing like Excessive Programming, the place builders swiftly put modifications into
manufacturing, protected by their assessments, code is invested in to maintain it wholesome,
and there’s common contact with The Buyer.
Clearly Beth and Kent want The Forest (as do I). However the metaphor is extra
about how description of The Forest and the recommendation for how you can work there usually
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 attainable
to alter Desert into Forest, but it surely’s tough – usually requiring folks to do
issues which are each exhausting and counter-intuitive. (It appears sadly simpler for
The Forest to undergo desertification.)
On this framing I am undoubtedly a Forest Dweller, and search with Thoughtworks
to domesticate a wholesome forest for us and our purchasers. 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 provided the picture, which he might have painstakingly drew pixel by
pixel. Or not.