Zero G is a survivor. The San Francisco company makes installation software-the programs that run when you're putting new software on your PC. Its headquarters are in the once booming south-of-Market area, where it has remained happily profitable even as its former dot-com neighbors have disappeared. But it almost bit the dust along with them, says president and cofounder Eric N. Shapiro-not because of the economy, but because of the slapdash way it wrote software before adopting a methodology known as "extreme programming."

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