Meraka Institute Seminar Series kicks off with lecture on eXtreme Programming (XP)
30 June 2005

The first Meraka Institute Seminar, envisaged as part of a series of Information and Communications Technology-related (ICT) seminars, took the form of a lecture by Three Rivers Institute’s founder and director Kent Beck on June 27 2005 at the Institute. The Seminar Series aims at providing a communication and learning mechanism through which the Institute can engage and share knowledge with stakeholders and other or interested parties.

At the recent seminar, Mr Beck who is one of the most influential figures in software development circles shared his knowledge on eXtreme Programming (XP) with about 60 delegates representing the Meraka Institute, the broader CSIR community, industry, academia and government.

Beck is regarded by many as the father of XP. Known as the most popular of several agile software development methodologies, XP provides realistic and simplistic solutions to software developers working under any circumstances, based on a set of principles.
Mr Beck is visiting South Africa from 27 June to 8 July as a guest of the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering, and will be giving lectures in Johannesburg and Cape Town during that time.

Laurens Cloete (right), greets Kent Beck and Fazel Mayet on their arrival at the Seminar	Beck sharing realistic and simplistic solutions that XP offers to software developers
The Meraka Institute's auditorium was packed with those keen to learn about the XP methodologies