I haven't tried it, but I know myself, and how I work. - Interacting with people is exhausting for me. I can't imagine having to be in constant communication w

I haven't tried it, but I know myself, and how I work. - Interacting with people is exhausting for me. I can't imagine having to be in constant communication with someone sitting right next to me, 7-8 hours a day, every workday. - Writing software requires deep concentration, and the constant interaction seems like it would destroy the required concentration. - Having to put everything I'm thinking into words, waiting for a reply, constantly being atuned to social niceties -- how can that be compatible with doing productive work? (Not in general, but for me.) I may stare at the screen for a while, trying to figure something out. A number of ideas go through my head. I run through a bunch of approaches quickly: that's stupid, that can't work, that might work, that's idiotic, ... I go back and reconsider the better ideas in more detail, ... First of all, I am reacting to incompletely formulated thoughts. Forcing those thoughts to be more formulated, to the point that I can describe them, definitely changes the way I would work. Maybe for the better, but definitely different. Second of all, saying "that's idiotic" to a coworker probably isn't a good idea. In general, pair programming seems like it would take an extremely absorbing and enjoyable actvity, and turn it into torture. For me. I read a New Yorker (I think) article about how Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat work together. They seem to do pair programming extremely successfully. Good for them. I have no doubt that it works well for some people. I am quite sure I'm not one of them.