He lives in San Francisco, California and previously worked at Facebook.[2] In 2019, Beck joined Gusto as a software fellow and coach, where he coaches engineering teams as they build out payroll systems for small businesses.[3]
In 1996 Beck was hired to work on the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System. Beck in turn brought in Ron Jeffries. In March 1996 the development team estimated the system would be ready to go into production around one year later. In 1997 the development team adopted a way of working which is now formalized as extreme programming.[5] The one-year delivery target was nearly achieved, with actual delivery being only a couple of months late.
Publications
Books
1996. Kent Beck's Guide to Better Smalltalk : A Sorted Collection. Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 978-0521644372)
1997. Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns. Prentice Hall. (ISBN 978-0134769042)
Never write a single line of code unless you have a failing automated test.
Eliminate duplication.
The book illustrates the use of unit testing as part of the methodology, including examples in Java and Python. One section includes using test-driven development to develop a unit testing framework.
2003. Contributing to Eclipse: Principles, Patterns, and Plugins. With Erich Gamma. Addison-Wesley. (ISBN 978-0321205759)
2023. Tidy First?: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design. O'Reilly. (ISBN 978-1098151249)
Selected papers
1987. "Using Pattern Languages for Object-Oriented Programs". With Ward Cunningham. OOPSLA'87.
1989. "A Laboratory For Teaching Object-Oriented Thinking". With Ward Cunningham. OOPSLA'89.
1989. "Simple Smalltalk Testing: With Patterns". SUnit framework, origin of xUnit frameworks.
References
^ a b"Extreme Programming", Computerworld (online), 2005, webpage: Computerworld-appdev-92.
^"Given my newly independent status after seven years at Facebook..."
^"Meet the influential programmer who's helping $3.8 billion Gusto make sure that its software always stays ahead of the times". Business Insider. September 4, 2019.
^Beck, Kent. "Kent Beck". LinkedIn. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
^Highsmith, Jim, ed. (February 18, 2024). Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-201-76043-9.