Pair programming is like magic in more ways than one. It dramatically improves programmer productivity and reduces bug count, and yet it does so through a technique that’s completely counter-intuitive. You can’t help but think that there’s some t…

Mike – “being chained next to someone all day long”
mipsy – “You can’t really critique them.” (Trying to work on level footing with a boss – Awkward!)
Chocolim – “But if someone sit next to me and question everything i do or interrupt my thiniking, i will to punch him/her in the face” (Strong emotion…)

Pair programming is nothing more than working together to solve a problem.
When you think of it like this, it’s obvious that it will fail miserably in a couple circumstances.
- When two people can’t work together
- When there’s no real problem to solve (simple work)

It’s obvious that it will have some advantages:
- Working together can build trust and respect
- Two heads are better than one on difficult problems.

@Michael: I like your story, but I’m not sure it applies to me. I love arguing, and I love being proved wrong. I dislike having to justify every little decision and coming in behind schedule because of it. I find that my code and productivity is much worse when working too closely with others on the same problem. There’s such thing as too much feedback.

I speak from experience (in jobs, in education, in life) that when you pair a smart person with a dumb person the dumb person does not get much better and the smart person does a LOT worse. Of course, it’s entirely possible (if unlikely) that a pair consists of two people of roughly equivalent skill. In this case, I suspect they do better than they otherwise would. But enough better to justify double the cost? Not in any case that I’ve ever seen.

Now I should also say that I’m a huge believer in mentoring. I once put my best guy next to someone who was on the verge of being fired. After about 3 months she was the second best member of the team. But I have no illusions that I paid for this by having my best guy operating at much less than 100% during that time. It was a worthwhile trade, but not something I’d be sticking with longer term if possible.

But back to the original point. Assume I’m a programmer and not a manager. I really do want to know why I would be interested in something like this. I’m quite skilled and can walk out the door and into another job in a day. So tell me something besides “fewer interruptions” (which is huge, but can be bought much cheaper).

@mike: A “few weeks of pairing” isn’t going to change your mind. It’s going to take MONTHS to get used to. Perhaps maybe give it another chance? Also, pick someone to pair with that is just as passionate.

@alex: Open-offices are awesome for turning around and claiming code that someone else may be working on. We’ve seperated ourselves into 3 big conference room-type rooms though since 16-20ppl pairing 100% of the time gets kinda LOUD.

@c.doley: Walking out the door won’t help you as a developer if being given the opportunity that very few companies would even consider doing. Don’t be “that developer”.

@wendy: I agree. A big thing we do in our shop is “Pair Promiscuity”. We have a pair-stair and we rotate pairs, daily. Once everyone is ramped up on all the projects, we can interchange on a daily basis to protect against someone getting sick or vacation or worse, hit by a truck.

@anonymous: They also look for non-rockstar developers that are ambitious and want to learn. So what better way to bring them up to speed? Pair them with a Rockstar that they would not normally get the chance to pair with.

@curtis: Couldn’t have said it better. Interviews in a conference room with a resume in hand is the most retarded way to hire someone. Pair them with all the levels of people in your office that they would have to work with anyway. We bring people in for 1 week of pairing. The surprising thing these days? The person being interviewed needs to be a better cultural fit then a rockstar developer. Rockstar developer status can be obtained through learning. Having to work with a arrogant asshole can’t. Well it can, but firing people kinda sucks.

It’s also nice that so many hate pairing and will never do it. With so many programmers and so few jobs, it’s nice to have a quick way of weaning out the weak.