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I've pair programmed before, and in my experience it's great when the codebase and job at hand is so terrible, that when working individually it's hard to have

I've pair programmed before, and in my experience it's great when the codebase and job at hand is so terrible, that when working individually it's hard to have the will to live, let alone be productive. In this environment, pair programmed got us both past the logjam we were both experiencing on this codebase and we were able to get things into the sort of shape that working alone became not only palatable but enjoyable again. We also did some API work together, and I think if you're writing interfaces and the like, working on that with someone who will be using it can be helpful in getting a good initial API out there. There are also other sorts of programming tasks where I don't feel pair programming was very productive (for me/us anyway).

mynameishere 17y ago
Yes, in practice, everybody pair programs, on an as-needed basis. When it's not needed...well, you shouldn't be doing it. I seriously think that non-stop pair programming is just a way to keep people from goldbricking (as the article hinted at the end). And really, 90 percent of programming is more "typing" than programming because the work is straightforward.
- dandelion 17y ago
  That's an exceedingly ignorant statement.
  - gruseom 17y ago
    I don't know which statement you mean, and it's a bit unnerving to be defending HN's gold medalist of curmudgeonry twice in one day, but I was going to comment on this anyway: 90 percent of programming is more "typing" than programming because the work is straightforward. This may be exaggerated, but it has more than a grain of truth. If you take it to mean 90% of programming as actually practiced, as opposed to 90% intrinsically, it's not even that much of an exaggeration. Working on harder problems in higher-level languages than I used to, I felt less productive for a very long time. In some ways I still do. I eventually figured out that this was because I was spending much more time thinking and much less time typing. Typing feels like good-old-fashioned-work in a way that thinking doesn't. That's why people feel satisfied after cranking out thousands of lines of code, when in reality they may well have made an unmaintainable mess (and thus destroyed value rather than created it).

mynameishere 17y ago

Yes, in practice, everybody pair programs, on an as-needed basis. When it's not needed...well, you shouldn't be doing it. I seriously think that non-stop pair programming is just a way to keep people from goldbricking (as the article hinted at the end). And really, 90 percent of programming is more "typing" than programming because the work is straightforward.

dandelion 17y ago
That's an exceedingly ignorant statement.
- gruseom 17y ago
  I don't know which statement you mean, and it's a bit unnerving to be defending HN's gold medalist of curmudgeonry twice in one day, but I was going to comment on this anyway: 90 percent of programming is more "typing" than programming because the work is straightforward. This may be exaggerated, but it has more than a grain of truth. If you take it to mean 90% of programming as actually practiced, as opposed to 90% intrinsically, it's not even that much of an exaggeration. Working on harder problems in higher-level languages than I used to, I felt less productive for a very long time. In some ways I still do. I eventually figured out that this was because I was spending much more time thinking and much less time typing. Typing feels like good-old-fashioned-work in a way that thinking doesn't. That's why people feel satisfied after cranking out thousands of lines of code, when in reality they may well have made an unmaintainable mess (and thus destroyed value rather than created it).