We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11860937 and marked it off-topic.

You can't blindly accept everything an article says just because it is written by a respected person. It means nothing at all.

Karl Marx was also highly respected until he was proven wrong...

I am not blindly following it. I think it is sound practical advice given by a titan of engineering.

I have yet to read anything of yours which says why I shouldn't listen to Kent Beck.

For every well respected opinion or technology there is always a group of naysayers. A cadre of individuals who offer nothing of insight in return.

In 1906 John Philip Sousa claimed the phonograph would ruin music. Don't be that guy.

Don't be the guy that says GUI's will never take off, that touchscreen phones will not sell, that the Godfather was a bad movie etc.

You are being contrarian for the sake of it. Kent Beck has a massive canon of work which advances the predictability and success rate of software development. You can challenge bits of it, improve it and contribute.

You are being that guy that makes sweeping generalisations which advance nothing.

What, specifically, do you think needs improved in the OP's article?

By a titan of software development processes, if there even is such a thing.

Titans of engineering are people like Torvalds, Carmack, Engelbart, Wozniak, Codd, Lamport, Wall and many many others.

Including process people in that list would be mistaken.

That's a fair challenge and I can accept I might be over-effusive in my praise.