Comments on: Pair Programming – An Extremely Agile Practice

By: clutterfreecoding

clutterfreecoding — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:03:59 +0000

Thanks for posting this. Very inetersting. I have recently found another site, which expresses rational software development in pictures http://www.clutterfreecoding.com.

By: Dave Hopkins

Dave Hopkins — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:02:53 +0000

Great Article. I found it very interesting, and I've actually tried it myself with fair results. One thing I've found (As Pawel Brodzinski said above) is that, like anything else, if your thinks something wont work, they may create a self fulling prophecy of failure.

By: Ilja Preuß

Ilja Preuß — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:07:19 +0000

I don't share the experience that for Pair Programming you need an extra budget. I also don't see why you'd need more people with special skillsets - in fact, I'd argue that exactly the opposite is true. Regarding hiring in pairs, I've never seen that being necessary.

It's true that pair programming can be socially challenging. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater here, though: it's a skill that can be learned, and from which you will highly benefit outside of pair programming, too.

By: Pawel Brodzinski

Pawel Brodzinski — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:11:06 +0000

There's one more issue with pair programming. If your team doesn't believe pair programming actually works and improves performance they'll most likely prove this.

This kind of cooperative work requires specific mindset of both engaged persons. Otherwise you lose much, if not all, of value pair programming can bring.

The problem is rather painful since typical developer has never programmed in pairs and is rather skeptical. That's why if your team programs in pairs you should recruit new people very carefully.

By the way: I gave developers much freedom to choose practices they follow in a couple of teams I led and they never even tried pair programming. I can't even remember if anyone was enthusiastic about the idea.