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Discussion on: Let's chat about pair programming

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mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

Point for point

  • A paired programmer can be totally disinterested, there's no guarantee of deep review. A person reviewing a PR on their own can be highly interested and provide a deep review.
  • "keeping them honest" sounds a like a horrible reason to pair up. It's like you don't trust the programmers to do a good job. Missing test, and lack of TDD can be easily spotted in PR reviews.
  • There's no evidence that code quality improves
  • Mentoring is different than pair programming, I support mentoring. As to other knoweldge transfer, sure, pair programming should improve shared knowledge on a project.
  • This sounds as though the team would be completely isolated if it weren't for pair programming. Non-pairing teams should still talk with one another, bounce ideas around, and work as a team.
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eljayadobe profile image
Eljay-Adobe • Edited

None of those counterpoints were what I had experienced doing paired programming. All my points are anecdotal of my experience.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Aside: I've tried my hand at making a general purpose programming language. It's hard. (And fun. And frustrating. And rewarding. And educational.) Best of luck with Leaf!