Reply to: Programming Pairs

[weemster]

This has been going for king years.....under one guise or another (XP was my first experience of it). Good thing in moderation imo.

[ThomasSoerensen]

I've heard my marriage described in a similar way

fixed that for you

[slickcontractor]

Did you get to hold the gun when it was his turn to code?

[Zippy]

There must be a very small subset of developers that could ever be effective working in pairs. I know I never could.

I imagine in 90% of cases, one does all the work, and the other sits there bored out of their mind.

I've heard marriage described in a similar way

[VectraMan]

I guess it would work if the two individuals were really compatible, maybe.

There must be a very small subset of developers that could ever be effective working in pairs. I know I never could.

I imagine in 90% of cases, one does all the work, and the other sits there bored out of their mind.

[bobhope]

It's one of those things that sounds good in theory, but rubbish for most of the time in practice.

I guess it would work if the two individuals were really compatible, maybe.

[Mehmeh]

Very Xtreme Programming,

The BBC are big on this.

Have done it on part, but not full...Usually just to go through design or code reviews and it turns into pair programming.

Can be good... but also, can just turn into the guru coding lots, and the more juniors head spinning.

[d000hg]

It's called Pair Programming and is fairly well known, if not widely used. Never done it myself and not sure I would want to.

[TimberWolf]

Why don't they save a seat and hire a schizophrenic?*


*Or whatever the term is for people with multiple personalities

[NotAllThere]

I don't mind the punters watching me code, so long as they keep quiet. I've done pair programming and it is very effective, but only if the "other half" is about as competent as you are. I find source code peer review less intrusive and about as effective though - and for that you don't need to pair people of similar ability.

[swamp]

Done this loads. Biggest benefit is spreading knowledge of the system around the team and avoiding area experts. Most suitable for proper TDD, especially with ping-pong coding (write failing test, swap, fix test and write new failing test, repeat).

Unfortunately most situations aren't like this. In reality it's work, slack off, work, slack off...

[teclo]

I had my CEO sit behind me watching intently once, not to check my code but because he was bored out of his mind and wanted to see someone actually doing real coding.

He sat behind me, looking over my shoulder and I got a bit of coders block. I hate someone sitting behind me watching what I do and wanting a running commentary as I type. I'm fast, and jump up and down the code all the time, having to slow myself down to punter speeds and explain everything at the same time threw me off, so I eventually told him to bugger off and let me get on with this important, time sensitive fix.

I couldn't handle a programming pair, it would be just like playing windows solitaire, you know, with the smart arse pointing out cards just before you are going to go for them. 5 of diamonds, 5 of diamonds.. over there... Argh fsck off!!

[Zippy]

I can only assume that this hasn't really taken off yet as we'd be reading about violent incidents among IT staff.

I had to impose this on my team. They really didn't like it and bitched constantly at each other, so we wasted lots of time resolving arguments. It was quietly dropped

[dx4100]

Load of crap.

Agreed... Costly, pointless and I wouldn't agree to it...

[minestrone]

Load of crap.