I worked at ThoughtWorks for three years, and -- like everything else XP -- pairing was very much the norm, for the software engineers, and I believe on the whole it worked to our benefit. I am off-the-chart introverted, so the forced intimacy aspect was a nightmare, but I balanced that emotional downside with the intellectual upside of learning a ton of things I might not have otherwise from the folks I paired with.
The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
241–250 of 308 posts
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#242Pair programming generates visceral responses due to it being introduced as if it were fact, which for me always triggers my spidey senses. People who didn't like it were told "you're doing it wrong" or "you didn't give it a proper chance". Dismissing criticisms out of hand only furthers distrust, regardless of the actual value of the idea. I played along and paired for awhile, but now steadfastly refuse to pair, eve…
Pairing works great; as long as everyone is on the same "wavelength." That's absolutely vital , and has both good and bad sides. The good, is what the author was talking about. That team cohesiveness, that he disturbingly compared to being in a Borg Collective, is something that can't be easily quantified, but can amplify energy and positive morale. The Marines have known this for a couple of hundred years. Every Mar…
Sorry about the military reference. I seem to have banged a couple of sore spots.
I'm not a vet (but my parents are planted in Arlington), but I've spent most of my adult life surrounded by them, so I've heard a lot of stories, and they are very practical, pithy applicable stories.
They often spring to mind, when I think about my work.
And we developers may not be thinking in military terms, but the chances are better than even, that the Corner Office is trying on a jacket covered in medals.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#243Shoot me now
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#244I had so many negative experience pair programming that I started to find ways to avoid it. There were the pairs the insisted on using vim[1]. There were the pairs that hogged the keyboard. I'm sure there were other things that frustrated me about it (it's been a long time since this was an every day thing now). In the end though, I opted out of pairing, first by taking a devops role at the same company that didn't r…
I worked with some vim power-users (I was definitely not one myself), and learned a lot from them by accommodating their preference. Similar results for other tools that I might not have picked up on my own. The only thing I drew the line at was switching to Dvorak with the one dude who carried his own special keyboard around with him. Even that I consider a missed opportunity, but I knew it would have wrecked my productivity at first, and it would have confused my muscle memory for QWERTY for the other 80% of my work week.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad you got out! I find that CEO level bosses (I used to be a teacher so am including heads/principals here) love to pontificate about stuff not related to the job. I've often wondered why. It's sometimes harmless, and clearly,as in your case, sometimes harmful. I do wonder what causes it though.
People who have power over others begin to believe that the positive feedback they get from their employees (simply because they control a person's financial and career success) equates to them being a person of actual interest. They believe the attention means they are smarter, funnier and more charming than they actually are. Tie this to people with narcissistic traits, and you get a strong feedback loop where they…
This is part of the reason why I left management. I really do feel that the positive feedback loop was getting to my head.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quit my job when pairing was introduced. I was open to the idea when I read about it but hated the reality. Everything from working 12 inches from people who refused to use deodorant to having to explain what I was thinking instead of just doing it. Also all my tools, preferences, keyboard shortcuts, etc. were mine, committed to muscle memory over years, and nobody else's setup was the same. Didn't work for me.
>people who refused to use deodorant What is it with people in our field that this is so commonplace? There are few things worse than a room full of IT people with the windows closed. "It's the smell" as Agent Smith said.
I stopped using deodorant years ago because I just didn't see the point.
If it did what it said on the bottle I'd be fine with it, but it doesn't actually deodorise anything. If you or your clothes are dirty the only way that takes away the smell is to wash, adding another smell on top of it is not a solution.
If they want to make a deodorant they should sell bottles of chlorine gas instead, but then they'd have to answer to the OPCW, never mind the FDA.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems incredibly wasteful to me. I have no problem with rapid iteration between design and implementation, but at least recognize that those are different activities, and that the latter is a poor way of doing the former.
Programming is neither design nor implementation; it's a skill and a tool that isn't owned by a particular process. I am quite happy to sketch in code; I won't work with my hands tied behind my back. Concretely, what "incredible waste" are you projecting here? Neither myself nor the ancestor even laid out a process to criticize.
"Design" can mean a lot of different things. UI? Data structures and algorithms? API? Database schema? Whichever of these we're discussing, and whatever process we're talking about, I find it much faster to think and sketch and describe in words before writing code.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having multiple perspectives on design. Serious question: Why is any design happening while programming? Seems unwise to start programming before you have designed the thing you are programming.
Why not? For nearly any user-facing program, merging the design and requirement gathering¹ with programming brings only good things. 1 - Including user testing. It's worth putting a lot of time into the process design just to have user testing concomitant with programming.
My experience is mostly server-side, and there, I have found that smushing these things together leads to sadness.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#249As someone who worked in an all pairing shop for two years (run by a bunch of former Pivots), I can confirm it’s pretty draining, though my experience wasn’t nearly as bad. I actually liked pairing a lot of the time, and still think it’s an excellent way to onboard into a new code base, even in a non pairing shop (I even miss it sometimes!). For me, the main drawback after a while was that I felt like I was less effi…
> my second job had quite a steep learning curve as I had to figure out how to debug and navigate on my own, without talking through it out loud. Why couldn't you talk through it out loud?
Well, you can, but you'll annoy people even more than if you had a mechanical keyboard ;) I do have a little needle-felted rubber duck I keep on my desk while working, remotely, though, for just that reason.
Re: The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
#250I had so many negative experience pair programming that I started to find ways to avoid it. There were the pairs the insisted on using vim[1]. There were the pairs that hogged the keyboard. I'm sure there were other things that frustrated me about it (it's been a long time since this was an every day thing now). In the end though, I opted out of pairing, first by taking a devops role at the same company that didn't r…
I worked with some vim power-users (I was definitely not one myself), and learned a lot from them by accommodating their preference. Similar results for other tools that I might not have picked up on my own. The only thing I drew the line at was switching to Dvorak with the one dude who carried his own special keyboard around with him. Even that I consider a missed opportunity, but I knew it would have wrecked my pro…
I know people that feel that way about it. I can't argue, I also had some really great pairing sessions where I learned a lot. On balance though, it was not what I wanted out of programming.
I have no problem with people that want to do consensual pairing (heh). To make that a focus for their career. It just wasn't for me.
I've ended up going in a different direction now building a startup.