There aren't any silver bullets in software development, and there probably never will be. However, Extreme Programming is a simple set of common-sense practices that, when used together, really can give you much of what you just read in the paragraph above. In this book, we tell you what the XP practices are, and how to install them in your project.

New technology provides an opportunity to move mathematical and technical education out of the lecture-homework-test mold into modes that do more to develop students' communication skills, teamwork, attention to quality, and overall responsible, mature behavior. In practice, however, severe and presumably unnecessary obstacles are encountered, mostly connected with the difficulty of transmitting mathematical notation electronically. As I document from personal experience, these obstacles are bad enough for an instructor providing information to students over the Web, and worse when students themselves are expected to communicate mathematically. I describe a partially successful scheme for carrying out peer review of homework papers over e-mail and the Web, resulting in a student-written solutions manual, and I offer a wish list of technical improvements.