3 ms·
I've worked at companies with 20 employees, and companies with 100,000 employees, and not once have I ever been asked to participate in pair programming. It wou
by ryukoposting 5y ago
I've worked at companies with 20 employees, and companies with 100,000 employees, and not once have I ever been asked to participate in pair programming. It would have been immensely useful in college, but VS Code already has a built-in tool that would do the job... and VS Code works on operating systems that I actually use.
Who is using this? What do you use it for? I don't mean to be facetious, I have just never been exposed to pair programming in a professional space.
- chana_masala 5y agoThat's strangely the opposite of my experience. I think you have to work at a company that values engineering culture. Also, you could suggest it.
- ryukoposting 5y agoPair programming isn't inherent to good engineering culture. I would say that my employers have had phenomenal engineering culture, and the first couple had the best mentorship experiences I could have ever asked for.
- chana_masala 5y agoHave you practiced it extensively though? You said you haven't professionally, so that leaves just personal experience. I would say it's not entirely critical, but I'd be very skeptical about a company's engineering if they didn't pair program. It would make me look closely at their other practices or lack of
- aparsons 5y agoI very much get a cargo-cult vibe from this statement. In a 30-year career, I’ve pair-programmed under 100 times. Usually to get someone up to speed on a confusing part of the code base. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if pair programming is a recurrent need, you need one or more of better engineers, better documentation, or better code reviews.
- chana_masala 5y agoThanks for the N=1. In my 5 year career I've pair programmed across the spectrum of experience roughly 500 times. I don't see it as only as a need to unblock someone. It's a great way learn and share from in a junior:senior dynamic, and also speaking strictly remotely, a nice way to socialize
- jpgvm 5y agoThey are excellent for mentoring. As a remote senior engineer I'm not able to simply stand over someones shoulder but I can offer to drop into a peer programming session and help someone through a problem and be able to take the keyboard and show them different approaches etc. Without these tools I don't think I could do my job effectively.
- smashedtoatoms 5y agoSame! I also find I learn all kinds of new tricks from jr and sr devs alike. Pairing is programming with the cheat codes on.
- ryukoposting 5y agoMentoring! That makes sense, and depending on where you work, the obvious "mac only" limitation isn't a big deal. Thanks for the insight!
- smashedtoatoms 5y agoI have worked in FAANG and in 10 person startups and have paired in them all. VSCode is fine if you're all using VSCode and don't need to screen share anything outside of VSCode. If everyone is on mac though, there is nothing better than Tuple that I have used. If one party uses IntelliJ and another uses vim, and you need to have a db client or browser or something open as well, Tuple is fantastic.
- PascLeRasc 5y agoYou've correctly identified why Windows isn't worth their time.
- armadsen 5y agoThere are plenty of programmers that don't/can't use VS Code, for one. I'm an iOS and Mac developer, so VS Code is of little use. I'm in Xcode all day. Tuple makes it so I can pair with Xcode, but also see/use the iOS simulator over the pairing connection.