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I'd be interested whether they've adopted pair programming or not. I've worked open plan solo and paired. Solo: I have ADHD. It's a nightmare. Paired: I have
by jacques_chester 10y ago
I'd be interested whether they've adopted pair programming or not.
I've worked open plan solo and paired.
Solo: I have ADHD. It's a nightmare.
Paired: I have ADHD. I barely notice the background.
- count 10y agoI think they've taken the Pivotal Labs (they even call them Predix Labs!) approach and do a LARGE amount of pairing. You guys have had quite an influence :)
- jacques_chester 10y agoThat's great! For Labs, our best outcome is to put ourselves out of a job because the clients are teaching themselves.
- mwfunk 10y agoI wonder how strongly pair programming is correlated with open office plans. Depressing if true, but if pair programming offsets the distraction of open plans, there may be cases where it's more viable for a company to simply hire twice as many developers and save money on office space, just to get out of having to give people offices. On the other hand, it seems like people doing pair programming in open plans would contribute to the overall noise and distraction- a warehouse full of pairs of people talking all the time would also be a bad scene. :(
- jacques_chester 10y agoNoise is definitely a problem if the space has poor acoustics. Some Pivotal offices have spent a lot of money on sound absorbing surfaces. I can't speak for other companies. We don't do open plan for money, it's just that it's easier to work this way for the way that we work. That said: for colocated teams of solo developers, or distributed teams, open plan is poison.
- dasmoth 10y agoOffice space isn't that expensive. While cost IS a factor, the idea seems to be going round that open plan is genuinely superior. (Although rarely so superior that the executives partake...)
- gaius 10y agoRight, startup companies do open-plan because it is cheap, not because any actual developers are more productive or happier that way. It's supposed to be something you put up with until the company can afford offices... Only that point got lost somewhere along the way. Hell why doesn't GE just remodel their offices to look like garages, because obviously that's the reason that Apple was successful...
- lgleason 10y agoThey will do a corporate rollout of pair programming once they Six Sigma Black Belts are done doing their lean workouts ;).
- throwaway011101 10y agoYep they pair or threesome. Theres actually alot of pressure to group up. We would pair all day most days when I worked there.
- jacques_chester 10y agoI take you disliked it? A lot of people do.
- throwaway011101 10y agoI prefer flow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
- jacques_chester 10y agoI don't think they're mutually exclusive. Have you never had an interesting conversation and then looked up, realising that 4 hours had passed? In my experience, I find it easier to focus with someone next to me than by myself. To the point that I take half as much Ritalin on pairing days than when I work alone.
- throwaway011101 10y agoMaybe you're right? It has to be the right person/people. Also, combine pairing with an open office and now you have two people with double the chances of being interrupted. So it's circumstantial.