{"id":12614,"date":"2024-12-01T13:00:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12614"},"modified":"2024-12-01T13:00:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T18:00:47","slug":"pair-programming-the-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12614","title":{"rendered":"Pair Programming: The Poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nWell, not really a poll but at least some random opinions. A while ago, I <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12465\">mentioned<\/a> a discussion I had with Perry Metzger about pair programming. Metzger, who is a serious person and well worth listening to, is a huge fan and says that he&rsquo;s never been so productive as when he&rsquo;s pair programming. I, on the other hand, imagine that it would be much like hell.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nI have always thought that most programmers\u2014for reasons that I couldn&rsquo;t imagine\u2014like pair programming. Certainly there is a lot of positive commentary about it on the Web. But perhaps I was wrong.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nabdullah_ayyash over at the Programming subreddit asks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/programming\/comments\/1h1ih5t\/what_is_your_honest_opinion_on_pair_programming\/\">what people think of pair programming and why they like it if they do<\/a>. The answers are what any reasonable person would expect: some like it, others don&rsquo;t. Those who don&rsquo;t like it appear more emphatic in their opinions but the opinions seem evenly split.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nPart of the problem, it seems, is exactly what you mean by &ldquo;pair programming&rdquo;. I think of it as a formal and planned sitting down together to write code. Others have a loser definition. Their definitions include such things as sitting down to debug a problem together or as a simple mentoring. I&rsquo;ve done both those things but wouldn&rsquo;t describe them as pair programming.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEven among those supporting it, my sense is that they see it as an occasional way of mentoring or sharing ideas, not as an everyday way of working.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSorry, but I&rsquo;m recalcitrant. I&rsquo;m not going to do anything that resembles the strict definition of pair programming. Not now, not ever. Still, lots of people feel otherwise and I have no objection to them indulging themselves. Perhaps that&rsquo;s the nub of the matter: if you pair program because you feel it helps you, go for it. My objection is to mandating its use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not really a poll but at least some random opinions. A while ago, I mentioned a discussion I had with Perry Metzger about pair programming. Metzger, who is a serious person and well worth listening to, is a huge &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12614\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-12614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12615,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12614\/revisions\/12615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}