Re: XP and Pair Programming

Nick Malik [Microsoft] wrote:
> > No agenda, just casual empiricism. Perhaps a better indicator would be
> > to take a straw vote on a few of the comp programming newsgroups and
> > take a count.
>
> Oh, yeah... THAT'S scientific :-)
>
> Better to poll readers of a general purpose programming magazine.
>
> So I went looking for just such a poll. Didn't find it. If anyone knows of
> a general purpose programming magazine that has done a poll on agile
> methods, please let me know.
>
> Along the way, I found an interesting article. The military conducted an
> experiment of using pair programming, and measured the result.
> http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2003/03/jensen.html

Where does it say "The military conducted an experiment"?
I see "a large software organization", 1975, Fortran.


> Excerpts
> "We hoped for a productivity gain of anything greater than 0 percent. Any
> small gain would have compensated for the two programmers loading on each
> task. The 127 percent gain achieved was phenomenal and a cause for
> celebration."

Another excerpt:
"Project individuals could not directly obtain a productivity and error
baseline for the project"

Where these even the same programmers working under the same manager?


Another excerpt:
"The individual teams appeared to be more focused in their activities.
The highly visible aspect of this attribute was that programmers took
fewer breaks for restrooms, coffee, outside discussions, etc."

In other studies of pair programming is any increased productivity
simply explained by increased work-effort?



> "The error analysis showed the project had achieved an error rate that was
> three orders of magnitude less than normal for the organization. Integration
> of the first two components (approximately 10,000 source lines) was
> completed with only two coding errors and one design error. "

Another excerpt:
"The remaining three components had more errors, but the number of
errors for these components was significantly less than normal."

Why aren't we told the error rate for the remaining three components?



> --
> --- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
> MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
> http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik
>
> Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
> representative of my employer.
> I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
> programmer helping programmers.
> --

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: XP and Pair Programming
    ... > correct in stating that any excerpt runs the risk of being interpreted out ... >>> In my personal experience with pair programming, ... > input to the productivity formula. ... > conducting Pair Programming research. ...
    (comp.object)
  • Re: XP and Pair Programming
    ... >>> In other studies of pair programming is any increased productivity ... correct in stating that any excerpt runs the risk of being interpreted out ... >> In my personal experience with pair programming, ...
    (comp.object)
  • Re: Academic research aimed at improving programmer productivity?
    ... Well, to accomplish significant results, people need ... > productivity in the shorter hours. ... Hm, people have pitched Extreme programming in various ways to me before, ... > resemblance to the way in which MIS managers accomplish their goals. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Academic research aimed at improving programmer productivity?
    ... > programming as a team activity is one of the major problems of industry. ... >> should be concerned with programmer productivity. ... > Marxism accomplishes that purpose, so I don't see why we need a Marxism ... Soviet managers fulfilled their Five Year Plans you discover a strange ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Anybody running unigraphics nx5?
    ... thinking about what took so long and what else Feature Based Chaining ... You think the real time saved is in programming? ... 10% of the machining time it will cover ALL the programming time times 10. ... Flexability is the key to productivity. ...
    (alt.machines.cnc)