Re: "Winning" the pair programming discussion

On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 7:10:35 PM, banshee858 <[email protected]> wrote:

> One complaint is pair programming is inefficent since you have less 
> parallel task being worked on.  Three pairs can cannot not work on as 
> many tasks in a single day as 6 programmers.

Note that this is far from obvious. Consider whether two people working
together can carry more or fewer 200 pound bags of cement than the same two
working alone.

The numbers on pairing indicate that pairs get about the same amount of
work done as the same number of people working singly, but the work is
better.

> You "might" add value 
> with pairing when two people of equal level are paired, but pairing 
> should NOT be considered when two novices are together or people of 
> unequal skill.

Why not?

> Asking an senior/expert developer to pair with 
> someone lesser skilled only results in frustration for each person.

Only? I'm fairly senior and expert, and I greatly prefer pairing. Most of
the wizards I know who are expert in pairing feel the same way.

> It is assumed the junior person will not have anything to contribute 
> since they are, by definition, junior.

"When you ASSUME ..."

> Second complaint results from collective code ownership.  In this 
> cas, knowledge is "too spread out" and you will get no "experts" in 
> any one area.

The rules of collective code ownership are that any pair MAY improve any
code at any time. They do not say that every pair WILL. They do not say
that specialists won't mostly work in their area of specialization.

> Also, if somehow you became an expert, you could lose 
> that knowledge as another pair "agressively refactored" the code you 
> knew.

Why would they do that? Why would they do it without your help? Why would
that empty the contents of your mind?

> The only constraint I have is you cannot use "you have to try pair 
> programming/XP to understand it."  Remember, we are trying to appeal 
> to people who will NOT try it and they are CONVINCED they are right.  
> So I am thinking we must try to convince them "on paper" before they 
> are willing to take the risk of doing something different.  What sort 
> of things have other said to appeal to the logical (or emotional) 
> centers in these types of people?  Or will these people just not "get 
> it", no matter what we say?  I seem to think they just don't "get it" 
> and probably never will.

Actually I less and less desire to convince people who aren't interested.
They just aren't interested. I have enough trouble helping people who are
interested. It's almost impossible to help people who don't want help.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very very hard to have a simple idea.
  -- Carver Mead


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