Re: An idle rant

From: Kevin Berry (kevin_at_berry_REM0VETH1S_ware.com)
Date: 01/17/05 

Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 11:24:41 -0600

Liz wrote:
> Ive heard many people rave about extreme programming where 1 person
> never sits and codes alone, and when 2 people are together does any
> code change.. To me, this effectively doubles any time spent on 1 line
> of code, so, I have to wonder, are their total coding times < half what
> they would have been including any fixes?

I think it also depends on personalities. You can have 2 people who are
paired who disagree on things a lot and you'll get nowhere fast. Some
people just don't work well together. Pair programming is an individual
thing- some people may like it and find it makes them more productive
while others may not. The key is pairing the right 2 people together.

I've worked in this way on an earlier project (actually before Extreme
Programming existed and when I was doing programming in the evenings
"for fun" and a bit of extra money and technical support during the
day). I actually found it worked very well. However, I worked with a
friend on this project. His experience on databases at the time was
better than mine and as we were coding stuff he suggested that we change
the initial architecture. If I had not been working with him on it I
probably would've gone quite far down the wrong path and wasted a lot of
time. I have never worked in a formal company environment where pair
programming has been implemented... so I can't comment on that!

Cheers,
Kevin.

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