RE: Pair Programming

Here's my spin on this:

There seems to /always/ be a couple hour's worth of solo stuff to do: email; following lists like this; thinking about the state of the code and design and tests; thinking about our process, the product, the iteration, the story; chatting with my manager or customer; straightening up my desk; thinking about the organization and morale; handling personal business; and on and on. All of that is not productive all the time, but most of that is necessary from time to time. I'm doing more of this now than I was 2 months ago because of my project's current phase and because of the current holidays and vacation days of my teammates. I'll do much less of this in January.

My younger, single, and child-less team-mates who have a long commute like to come in at 10am. After I put my daughter on the school bus, I can get to work by 8am. I have never, well, rarely, had trouble finding a way to be productive by myself for a couple hours each day. 

Some programmers just want to code and have no interest in any of the solo stuff I mentioned earlier. However, whenever I can help it, I prefer to not have such individuals on my team. (I believe that people who think about their process make better XPers.) The bigger the team, the less of an issue this is because with larger teams there is a greater chance that if one team member is in, then so will be another.

To look at this another way, pair-programming can at times, and more so for some people than others, be quite intense and tiring. We don't want to pair for 8 hours every day. Time alone to think is important.

regards,
andrew fuqua


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