[Silhouette]

I've literally never worked for any employer in any development role where spontaneous pairing or larger group collaborations didn't happen often. It's just human nature. I see others commenting in this very discussion with similar anecdotal experience, so apparently I'm not just completely weird in this respect.

I don't doubt that you can learn a great deal and obtain other benefits as a result of pair programming. I'm just questioning whether making it a formal, quasi-full-time arrangement is necessarily better than the ad-hoc version I see happening all the time for similar reasons and with similar benefits.

[BurningFrog]

We may just mean different things by pairing.

Sure, people help each other in various ways in most places. But that's the solo programmer on a task asking someone else for help. Two people work on a something together, from start to finish, is a quite different thing

[Silhouette]

Just to be clear, I'm talking about two (or more) developers, gathering together to solve a problem collaboratively, with the end result that the code to do so is written or at least the significant questions have been answered and what remains is little more than a mechanical exercise. But I'm talking about that happening spontaneously, and not necessarily starting from a complete blank slate, being done on a specific schedule or according to any specific process or using any specific tools, or being required as formal policy.