Sprint (software development)

This article is about the short meetup. For the development iteration, see Sprint (scrum).

A sprint is a get-together of people involved in a project to further a focused development of the project. Sprints typically last from one week up to three weeks. Sprints have become popular events in some open-source projects. For example, the PyPy project is mostly developed during regularly held sprints where most of the international developer team gathers.[1]

Sprints often take place near conferences which most of the project team attend, but they can also be hosted by some involved party at their premises or at some interesting location.

Sprints are organized around the ideas of the Extreme Programming discipline of software development. A coach directs the sprint, suggesting tasks, tracking their progress and making sure that no one remains stuck. Most of the development happens in pairs. A large open space is often chosen as a venue for efficient communication.

Sprints can vary in focus. During some sprints people new to the project are welcomed and get an intensive hands-on introduction pairing with an experienced project member. The first part of such sprints is usually spent getting ready, presenting the tutorials, getting the network setup and ensuring that configuration/source-control software and processes are installed and followed.

A significant benefit of sprinting is that the project members meet in person, socialize, and start to communicate more effectively than when working together remotely.[2]

In open source

The practice of using sprints for open source software development was pioneered by the Zope Corporation in the early days of the Zope 3 project. Between January 2002 and January 2006, more than 30 Zope 3 sprints had taken place.[3]

See also

Citations

  1. ↑ B. Düring, "Sprint Driven Development: Agile Methodologies in a Distributed Open Source Project (PyPy)" in Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering, P. Abrahamsson, M. Marchesi, and G. Succi, Eds. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006, pp. 191–195.
  2. ↑ A.Sigfridsson, G. Avram, A. Sheehan and D. K. Sullivan "Sprint-driven development: working, learning and the process of enculturation in the PyPy community" in the Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Open Source Systems, Limerick, Ireland, June 11-13 2007, Springer, pp. 133-146
  3. ↑ c2.com Python Sprint entry

External links

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