4 ms·

Also find this hilarious in context with the other line that says "Maintain high output while pairing with junior teammates." I also greatly appreciate knowing

Also find this hilarious in context with the other line that says "Maintain high output while pairing with junior teammates." I also greatly appreciate knowing when a role will involve pairing so I can steer clear of it. There are way more empowering ways to skill up junior programmers that don't involve wasting both engineers' time. Assign an achievable but not insignificant task, have a code review system set up, and have them frequently post reviews while they build their solution. The senior engineer can then do the whole mentor thing asynchronously and in response to actual issues the junior has, while the junior is then also allowed to make mistakes, struggle, and overcome issues him/herself.

jacques_chester 11y ago
My experience is very different from yours. I've been spoilt by pairing, I no longer prefer to work solo. I've also seen organisations trying to substitute asynchronous code reviews for pairing. They aren't really substitutable. Just as pairing has antipatterns, so do code review systems. As an analogy, I've coached olympic-style weightlifting. The difference between coaching in person and coaching online is night and day. And coaching beginners pretty much demands fast feedback to be most effective.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  Performing the task of weightlifting is incredibly different than performing the task of programming. Much evidence suggests that programmers perform better solo because they can more easily reach states of psychological flow, and because they are less inhibited by social interactions which modulate certain parts of our thinking and can inhibit creativity, etc. At the very least, this is more highly true of introverted personality styles, and creating mandates for policies like pair programming is extremely insensitive (almost to a point of blatant discrimination) towards people with differing personality and learning styles. For me personally, I can't learn anything from other people saying stuff about it audibly. I have to read documentation or code. I am the weirdo who actually reads my car's maintenance manual to figure out how to change spark plugs or use the jack to lift the car when replacing a tire. Someone can tell me how to change a tire all day long and it just doesn't help at all. I even played quarterback on my high school football team and even at that I had to actually read books and biomechanics papers about the throwing motion before I really improved. I went to football camps and everything and it just did no good. For me, I really only absorb information when I literally tune out all audio (especially the sound of people talking) and read. I suppose I serve as something of a counter-example, then. Just because beginners in weightlifting (or any given activity) benefit most from fast, in-person feedback does not at all mean that beginners in some other activity (like programming) will also benefit from that kind of feedback. I've also worked in high pair-programming environments, in one case with a group of other experienced, extremely talented engineers, and in another case with a larger number of average to mediocre engineers. In both cases, across the board, pairing slowed us down and led to worker dissatisfaction. The few times when pairing came in handy were those cases when a person needed to begin working on a section of code or a subsystem that someone else had explicit experience with. Then, pairing them briefly (for, say, half a day) to force the novice to get up to speed quickly and have an "oracle" nearby was really helpful, but after about the 4 hour mark it just started slowing both people down, caused the novice to learn too slowly, and focused hyper amounts of attention on issues that wouldn't have needed to be brought up if the novice instead focused on solving their own problems and boiling down their issue list into a smaller, asynchronous list of just the most urgent needs. And, truly, the only reason that those first four or so hours of pairing worked at all is that the documentation for the code was poor. If the exact questions and answers that were discussed during pairing had instead been turned into an internal StackOverflow and/or an internal quick start guide, it would have helped far more people get up to speed far more quickly than pairing, while only costing the senior dev a single up front cost. Pairing is the definition of an activity that doesn't scale, and is arguably less beneficial than well written user guides + StackOverflow-like tools that allow for documenting the learning process.
  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    > Performing the task of weightlifting is incredibly different than performing the task of programming. My point was that coaching is coaching. Fast feedback is more effective on great many learning tasks than slow feedback. It's why we obsess over closing loops. > At the very least, this is more highly true of introverted personality styles, and creating mandates for policies like pair programming is extremely insensitive (almost to a point of blatant discrimination) towards people with differing personality and learning styles. We discuss this question a lot internally. Speaking for myself, I don't participate in most of the social activities happening in and around the office -- I want alone time to recharge. Sensitivity to others -- empathy -- is one of our core values. It has to be. We're collaborators. We're learners and teachers. We have to think about our pair, we have to be sensitive to their rhythms and limits. That said, there's a self-selection process too. Lots of people either read the job description and nope their way out, or go through a pairing interview and nope out. > I have to read documentation or code. We discuss this too. It's perfectly acceptable for a pair to agree to split up and read docs. > I suppose I serve as something of a counter-example, then. Just because beginners in weightlifting (or any given activity) benefit most from fast, in-person feedback does not at all mean that beginners in some other activity (like programming) will also benefit from that kind of feedback. Some feedback is fast. Some is slow. Pairing allows for both. Asynchronous code reviews do not, especially since the incentives are whacky. I've seen a few such systems at different companies now and there are common antipatterns: for example, tiny patches getting the nod quickly -- but anything more than a bit tricky languishing for days or weeks, becoming stale. Codebases dispersed across forks and branches and patches; enormous fleets of patches in flight and no way to test the permutations. > In both cases, across the board, pairing slowed us down and led to worker dissatisfaction. Since we're trading anecdotes: I've never seen this. Ever. I've been working this way continuously for two years now, with developers from multiple companies in multiple industries with varying levels of experience, wildly varying cultures and power structures and cultures and procedures and pain points. The uniform win has been pair programming -- even with developers who came in promising that they'd hate it. > If the exact questions and answers that were discussed during pairing had instead been turned into an internal StackOverflow and/or an internal quick start guide, it would have helped far more people get up to speed far more quickly than pairing There's nothing about pairing that precludes internal Q&A (we have that, informally and formally) or writing documentation (a good README is gold). > Pairing is the definition of an activity that doesn't scale There are more than 120 engineers pairing on Cloud Foundry now, spread across multiple offices on multiple continents in multiple teams. And we're hiring. And so are other Cloud Foundry Foundation members. We scaled it. There were definite growing pains and we've had to eat humble pie garnished with crow a few times. But it scales in the same way you scale any other project. Better, in some ways, because engineers rotate between teams and carry deep insight of distant codebases to their new teams. The thing is that two years ago, I would've agreed with you. I took my job in Pivotal Labs because I wanted to learn and I was prepared to hold my nose. Now I'm an extremely annoying proselyte. Converts often are. I understand that you don't feel the same and that you probably never will. That's OK; it's a big industry and different people can find the way to work that suits them best. I just wanted to put the case that pair programming is, on my fulltime, professional experience of the past two years, fucking awesome.

jacques_chester 11y ago

My experience is very different from yours. I've been spoilt by pairing, I no longer prefer to work solo. I've also seen organisations trying to substitute asynchronous code reviews for pairing. They aren't really substitutable. Just as pairing has antipatterns, so do code review systems. As an analogy, I've coached olympic-style weightlifting. The difference between coaching in person and coaching online is night and day. And coaching beginners pretty much demands fast feedback to be most effective.

p4wnc6 11y ago
Performing the task of weightlifting is incredibly different than performing the task of programming. Much evidence suggests that programmers perform better solo because they can more easily reach states of psychological flow, and because they are less inhibited by social interactions which modulate certain parts of our thinking and can inhibit creativity, etc. At the very least, this is more highly true of introverted personality styles, and creating mandates for policies like pair programming is extremely insensitive (almost to a point of blatant discrimination) towards people with differing personality and learning styles. For me personally, I can't learn anything from other people saying stuff about it audibly. I have to read documentation or code. I am the weirdo who actually reads my car's maintenance manual to figure out how to change spark plugs or use the jack to lift the car when replacing a tire. Someone can tell me how to change a tire all day long and it just doesn't help at all. I even played quarterback on my high school football team and even at that I had to actually read books and biomechanics papers about the throwing motion before I really improved. I went to football camps and everything and it just did no good. For me, I really only absorb information when I literally tune out all audio (especially the sound of people talking) and read. I suppose I serve as something of a counter-example, then. Just because beginners in weightlifting (or any given activity) benefit most from fast, in-person feedback does not at all mean that beginners in some other activity (like programming) will also benefit from that kind of feedback. I've also worked in high pair-programming environments, in one case with a group of other experienced, extremely talented engineers, and in another case with a larger number of average to mediocre engineers. In both cases, across the board, pairing slowed us down and led to worker dissatisfaction. The few times when pairing came in handy were those cases when a person needed to begin working on a section of code or a subsystem that someone else had explicit experience with. Then, pairing them briefly (for, say, half a day) to force the novice to get up to speed quickly and have an "oracle" nearby was really helpful, but after about the 4 hour mark it just started slowing both people down, caused the novice to learn too slowly, and focused hyper amounts of attention on issues that wouldn't have needed to be brought up if the novice instead focused on solving their own problems and boiling down their issue list into a smaller, asynchronous list of just the most urgent needs. And, truly, the only reason that those first four or so hours of pairing worked at all is that the documentation for the code was poor. If the exact questions and answers that were discussed during pairing had instead been turned into an internal StackOverflow and/or an internal quick start guide, it would have helped far more people get up to speed far more quickly than pairing, while only costing the senior dev a single up front cost. Pairing is the definition of an activity that doesn't scale, and is arguably less beneficial than well written user guides + StackOverflow-like tools that allow for documenting the learning process.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  > Performing the task of weightlifting is incredibly different than performing the task of programming. My point was that coaching is coaching. Fast feedback is more effective on great many learning tasks than slow feedback. It's why we obsess over closing loops. > At the very least, this is more highly true of introverted personality styles, and creating mandates for policies like pair programming is extremely insensitive (almost to a point of blatant discrimination) towards people with differing personality and learning styles. We discuss this question a lot internally. Speaking for myself, I don't participate in most of the social activities happening in and around the office -- I want alone time to recharge. Sensitivity to others -- empathy -- is one of our core values. It has to be. We're collaborators. We're learners and teachers. We have to think about our pair, we have to be sensitive to their rhythms and limits. That said, there's a self-selection process too. Lots of people either read the job description and nope their way out, or go through a pairing interview and nope out. > I have to read documentation or code. We discuss this too. It's perfectly acceptable for a pair to agree to split up and read docs. > I suppose I serve as something of a counter-example, then. Just because beginners in weightlifting (or any given activity) benefit most from fast, in-person feedback does not at all mean that beginners in some other activity (like programming) will also benefit from that kind of feedback. Some feedback is fast. Some is slow. Pairing allows for both. Asynchronous code reviews do not, especially since the incentives are whacky. I've seen a few such systems at different companies now and there are common antipatterns: for example, tiny patches getting the nod quickly -- but anything more than a bit tricky languishing for days or weeks, becoming stale. Codebases dispersed across forks and branches and patches; enormous fleets of patches in flight and no way to test the permutations. > In both cases, across the board, pairing slowed us down and led to worker dissatisfaction. Since we're trading anecdotes: I've never seen this. Ever. I've been working this way continuously for two years now, with developers from multiple companies in multiple industries with varying levels of experience, wildly varying cultures and power structures and cultures and procedures and pain points. The uniform win has been pair programming -- even with developers who came in promising that they'd hate it. > If the exact questions and answers that were discussed during pairing had instead been turned into an internal StackOverflow and/or an internal quick start guide, it would have helped far more people get up to speed far more quickly than pairing There's nothing about pairing that precludes internal Q&A (we have that, informally and formally) or writing documentation (a good README is gold). > Pairing is the definition of an activity that doesn't scale There are more than 120 engineers pairing on Cloud Foundry now, spread across multiple offices on multiple continents in multiple teams. And we're hiring. And so are other Cloud Foundry Foundation members. We scaled it. There were definite growing pains and we've had to eat humble pie garnished with crow a few times. But it scales in the same way you scale any other project. Better, in some ways, because engineers rotate between teams and carry deep insight of distant codebases to their new teams. The thing is that two years ago, I would've agreed with you. I took my job in Pivotal Labs because I wanted to learn and I was prepared to hold my nose. Now I'm an extremely annoying proselyte. Converts often are. I understand that you don't feel the same and that you probably never will. That's OK; it's a big industry and different people can find the way to work that suits them best. I just wanted to put the case that pair programming is, on my fulltime, professional experience of the past two years, fucking awesome.