Pair programming almost destroyed a small team at my remote-first company. It's a powerful tool but some developers don't know when to stop.
If you can share would be curious to learn more. Any lessons that you can share to be aware about?
Collaborative programming in remote-first environment
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Re: Collaborative programming in remote-first environment
#12Pair programming almost destroyed a small team at my remote-first company. It's a powerful tool but some developers don't know when to stop.
If you can share would be curious to learn more. Any lessons that you can share to be aware about?
Be aware of the power dynamics within the team. Be transparent with your client about the fact two people are going to be working on the same tasks.
Re: Collaborative programming in remote-first environment
#13The purported benefits for collaborative programming include knowledge sharing, less WiP, real-time reviews and focus time. So, what's the point of collaborative programming for someone who already knows how to manage their time (including focus time), keeps track of WiP and insists on writing down all the knowledge gleaned from the code during reviews?
collaborative programming gets you the benefits by weeding out all developers who can't "knowledge sharing, less WiP, real-time reviews and focus time"
Re: Collaborative programming in remote-first environment
#14The purported benefits for collaborative programming include knowledge sharing, less WiP, real-time reviews and focus time. So, what's the point of collaborative programming for someone who already knows how to manage their time (including focus time), keeps track of WiP and insists on writing down all the knowledge gleaned from the code during reviews?
collaborative programming gets you the benefits by weeding out all developers who can't "knowledge sharing, less WiP, real-time reviews and focus time"
If that's true, then collaborative programming will leave the teams empty: it is such a gigantic waste of time that those who can will vote with their feet too.
Re: Collaborative programming in remote-first environment
#15I do almost all my work completely collaboratively in a "pair" and have run into literally zero of the problems outlined here, is this a unique case? We don't have problems with roles or scheduling or anything of the sort and we're 5 hours apart timezones as well I wonder if I'm the outlier or if this article is bikeshedding about nonexistent problems
Hey, I am the author of the article. Happy to hear that it works well for you. I have been personally where you are only in office environment, and fair point, it does and can happen that things work smoothly. That said, I have seen it more not working than working. I think it depends a lot on the environment and conditions that people are working/operating, for example we are a relatively newly formed team (90% of t…
My partner works for a company that actually does pair programming in the interview process, to ensure all new hires perform satisfactorily using that method of development. All development there is done using pair programming and the general overall sentiment is that it improves productivity over solo development. So it works if everyone you hire works well with it.