Development PracticesConference50min
Is AI killing XP practices? (Or are we letting it?)
AI is challenging 7 Extreme Programming practices, tempting teams to skip tests, refactoring, standards, and feedback loops. This session shows why these habits remain essential—and even more critical—in AI-assisted development, where AI amplifies both good and bad practices, making disciplined engineering more important than ever.
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Nacho CougilDynatrace
For the last 20-30 years, the software industry has been learning — sometimes the hard way — how to build better software. Practices like TDD, refactoring, pair programming, simple design, collective code ownership, continuous integration, and coding standards didn't appear by magic. They came from pain, failed projects, and the brilliant minds behind XP — Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, and Ron Jeffries — who asked: "can we do this better?"
And now? Now we have AI. And suddenly, some developers are asking: "do we still need all that?"
In this session, we'll look at 7 XP practices that are genuinely at risk in an AI-assisted world — not because they're wrong, but because AI makes it tempting to skip them. We'll see what happens when teams do skip them (spoiler: it's not pretty 😅), and more importantly, how these practices don't just survive the AI era — they become *more critical than ever*.
AI amplifies everything. Good habits and bad ones. If your team has no tests, no shared standards, no feedback loop — AI will help you build the mess of your life, faster than ever before.
AI is the best stress test XP practices have ever had. Spoiler: they pass 😉
And now? Now we have AI. And suddenly, some developers are asking: "do we still need all that?"
In this session, we'll look at 7 XP practices that are genuinely at risk in an AI-assisted world — not because they're wrong, but because AI makes it tempting to skip them. We'll see what happens when teams do skip them (spoiler: it's not pretty 😅), and more importantly, how these practices don't just survive the AI era — they become *more critical than ever*.
AI amplifies everything. Good habits and bad ones. If your team has no tests, no shared standards, no feedback loop — AI will help you build the mess of your life, faster than ever before.
AI is the best stress test XP practices have ever had. Spoiler: they pass 😉
Nacho Cougil
Nacho is a software engineer from Barcelona, fan of eXtreme Programming (XP) practices who has been working with Java and other web technologies before the Y2K. He had experience in different roles in the IT world ('guy-for-everything', developer, team lead, project manager and CTO) working in companies in many sectors: energy, e-commerce, startups (some unicorn) technology consultancy and application performance management. Now working as a Principal Software Engineer at Dynatrace developing software for monitoring applications and in 2022 became Java Champion.
Always concerned with questions like "how does it work?" and "how can we make it better?", Nacho loves to share his knowledge with others and learn from them. As a natural progression to this attitude, he founded the Barcelona Java Users Group and co-founded the Barcelona Developers Conference (DevBcn).
When he is not thinking about the next interesting thing to do for the community, he enjoys spending time with his family, playing sports or improving his TDD and other XP skills.
Always concerned with questions like "how does it work?" and "how can we make it better?", Nacho loves to share his knowledge with others and learn from them. As a natural progression to this attitude, he founded the Barcelona Java Users Group and co-founded the Barcelona Developers Conference (DevBcn).
When he is not thinking about the next interesting thing to do for the community, he enjoys spending time with his family, playing sports or improving his TDD and other XP skills.