Artifact: Production Code
The executable specification of the system being built.
Purpose

In XP, we consider Production Code to be the most important artifact. It is the one design artifact that cannot be replaced because it is the only complete and unambiguous expression of design intent. Source code is a specification. It, along with a compiler or interpreter, encompasses all of the semantics necessary to produce a running process on a computer.

Relationships
RolesResponsible: Modified By:
TasksInput To:
Output From:
Description
Main Description

This definition of Production Code encompasses hand-coded software as well as executable models. The Production Code must be kept clean and simple, as it is the main vehicle for communicating design intent to the programming team. The code has comprehensive customer and unit tests. The XP practices of simple design, pair programming, refactoring, collective code ownership, test driven development, and coding standard support the creation of the code.

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Concepts
Copyright (c) 2002, 2006 IBM Corporation and Object Mentor. All rights reserved.
This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 which accompanies this distribution, and is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html.
Contributors: IBM Corporation and Object Mentor - initial implementation