spike

Why are TDD 'Spikes' called 'Spikes?

The test driven development guys refer to a quick, exploratory, investigation that involves coding something up to see if it works, a spike. Any ideas why they came up with that word? Update: The coinage by Kent Beck looks like the 'original' one to me, although his usage of the word doesn't make much sense in my opinion. Coding up a q...

In source-control terminology what is a spike?

I've seen the word "spike" used in relation to source-control. For example, a project I'm working with has three top-level folders: trunk, branches and spikes. What's the meaning of this term? ...