My experience with pair programming: It is so great when the other person is very good/smart at programming. You sense that your work is way more than the sum

My experience with pair programming: It is so great when the other person is very good/smart at programming. You sense that your work is way more than the sum of the individual parts. It is like an explosion of creativity because you don't stop when you have a block and the other has not, or he has a block and you have not. It is not great when the other person is not good/smart. You make all the work, the other can only spot the obvious, and makes the sum way less than individual parts. Feels like an endless drain that won't finish ever. In world war they experimented with airplanes pilots: creating groups with the best ones, letting other groups with the not so good. It was fantastic for the elite groups, but bad for the mediocre ones. They mixed groups with good and mediocre people and it made the mediocre turn good, but the good didn't became elite. So I think this has pros and cons, and is not for everyone.