Kent Beck (born 1961) is an American software engineer and the creator of extreme programming,[1] a software development methodology that eschews rigid formal specification for a collaborative and iterative design process.

Extreme and Agile methods are closely associated with Test-Driven Development (TDD), of which Beck is perhaps the leading proponent.

Beck pioneered software design patterns, as well as the commercial application of Smalltalk.

In March 1996 the development team estimated the system would be ready to go into production around one year later.

The book illustrates the use of unit testing as part of the methodology, including examples in Java and Python.