[C0d3r]

> At the same time, real work is not getting done. Meaningful work is usually done quietly and in solitude.

You can do great work by pairing or mobbing too. Being isolated is good, but it's harder to learn new things working by yourself.

[commandlinefan]

> harder to learn new things working by yourself

Depends on the things. Another person might be able to share a few tricks with you: you may not know that you can drag the lower corner of an excel spreadsheet cell to copy formulas, for example, or that you can use "cw" to change a word in vi. On the other hand, learning something like relational database modeling or functional programming requires dedicated focus that another person is probably going to get in the way of.

[pmorici]

"it's harder to learn new things working by yourself."

I strongly disagree. I rarely learn anything of consequence when working with others. Pairing and mobbing strike me as fads.

[geerlingguy]

Some people thrive in that kind of environment (XP and all that), I know it sucked the soul out of me the one time it was forced on my team at a prior employer.

[C0d3r]

Interesting, I guess it depends on the person and on the thing you're learning like someone else mentioned. I do think you need some time by yourself to really go deep at your own speed to learn something.

Pairing and mobbing are not fads, they've been around for a while and in my experience they've been very useful, I'd recommend you try it with someone with experience with it.

[dheera]

I generally do not work well if there's someone staring at me as I work. I also have my own, high-productivity, quirky ways of using computers that mostly only work for me in solitude.

[marcinzm]

>Being isolated is good, but it's harder to learn new things working by yourself.

Code reviews I feel provide a good avenue for learning how others have done things.

I've hit blocks in the past while working by myself however I feel part of learning is hitting a block over and over. Only once you truly grasp why other solutions don't work does a new novel solution really fit in completely. Moreover unless you truly try to solve it yourself you don't develop the skills to solve problems.