I've had some good, some bad experiences with pair programming. The best experiences were when both of us were learning a new API and type of program. That's t

I've had some good, some bad experiences with pair programming. The best experiences were when both of us were learning a new API and type of program. That's the sort of thing where you are likely to make lots of small mistakes, and it's a lot less frustrating when you have someone else to help catch them. The worst experiences were when the programs were relatively easy, and there was just a lot of stuff to be done. The person watching gets bored, and the person coding gets distracted. I feel like if one person is confident they can bang something out, just do that. If it's the sort of annoying programming neither of you want to do, it helps to pair. Hard to have general rules though for such a personality-dependent activity.