[lmm]

I don't enjoy pair-programming. I avoid it as much as I can get away with. But looking at the results, it's an inescapable fact that I produce higher-quality code when I do - so for those critical pieces that need to be bug-free, I force myself to do it.

[berntb]

Is that personal experience or a general research result?

Is the result better than with careful code reviews [of the critical pieces] (both after writing, but also short checks during development over a code listing and coffee)?

Intuitively, everything with coffee involved ought to be better! :-)

[lmm]

Just personal experience.

Better than some theoretically perfect practice of careful code reviews? I don't know. Better than code reviews as actually implemented everywhere I've worked? Yes. (In particular I find it's really hard to maintain the discipline of carefully going through each other's code when you know that most of the time you won't find anything)

[louthy]

Coffee is certainly my pair! :)