Agree with many sentiments described here. I was one of the early pioneers in this area, starting with XP in 1998. At the time, it was cool because it was count

Agree with many sentiments described here. I was one of the early pioneers in this area, starting with XP in 1998. At the time, it was cool because it was counter culture, rather than cargo culture. I remember having to get approval from the president of our 500 person company to come in on our own time on a Saturday to take down a cubicle wall, so that we could have a larger collective space. Some pairings were a delight to participate in; others more strained. But when it worked, it was super cool. It was like that dribble attack on the goal where you just read each other's minds. One thing we learned early on though, was that any real debugging didn't work well this way. We even codified it as "debugging break" where we would split apart and sort of mumble aloud the different things we were seeing as we pursued our various intuitions and hunches. Now days, I rarely pair anymore. The skill gap in my current team is pretty varied. The sense of self is strong, which generally goes against the "us before I" gestalt of pair programming. I do find when I need to answer questions or demonstrate, I tend to put myself in the passenger chair and turn it into a pairing experience for the other.