[ouid]

I think the opitmal number of people working on a problem is somewhere between 1 and 2. The amount of communication required obviously scales very poorly, but in principle, having to explain your process to someone else functions well. I prefer pair programming to solo work, usually. I catch more bugs, and am forced to explain things to myself as I explain them to my partner.

[ajuc]

Pair programming works well for tasks that take a few days. For tasks that take hours it's not worth it IMHO.

[ouid]

I agree, and the premise of going in on a programming contest with a team is presumably that you are all capable of solving some problem on your own. I was merely arguing that there is value to be had in numbers greater than 1, but not numbers greater than 2, in my experience.