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by commandlinefan
2292 days ago
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I don’t know if I would say I “hate” it, but the one time I tried it (at the behest of my then-employer), I and the rest of my team found it to be unworkably impractical. We had half as many computers as we had programmers, so we each shared a workstation. However, each of us had our own individual e-mail addresses, so we’d have to take turns checking and reading e-mail while the other one sort of looked away. When we started using something new (I think it was Apache Struts back then), we’d have to take turns reading the documentation - we even tried putting two different copies up side by side so we could scroll individually (but we still had to take turns moving the mouse). Beyond that, everything seemed to take way longer than it might have taken individually because neither of the people in the pair would be comfortable doing anything experimental unless they could quickly explain it to the other, so there was a lot of time spent talking about whether some approach or other might work instead of just trying it to see what happened. |
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If you're pairing, don't read your e-mail. Even if you're just in a solo work session, don't read your e-mail. It's incredibly disruptive and constant inbox checking will drop your productivity like a rock.
It's okay to pair with multiple workstations (or a single workstation set up for multi-user mode, that's the dream I guess). Looking away from the "main screen" to check docs (or VCS, or the build, etc.) is perfectly fine, just don't get drawn in so deep that you forget about your partner. And certainly don't use that as an excuse to check your e-mail or slack!
One strategy to apply is "show, don't tell". If you have a hard time explaining what you're going to try to do, just do it, the code will probably be clearer than your explanation alone. If it's not, use the conversation to drive the uncovering of assumptions, which can then be encoded in the source.
Remember that pairing isn't simply two people, one keyboard. There are defined roles: the driver and the navigator. The driver handles mechanics, the navigator observes and questions assumptions. Then switch roles. The driver should fearlessly try the experimental things. If the navigator wants to experiment, ask to drive.