[grimer]

In regards to pair programming - I realized recently that I'm opposed to it just because I don't enjoy it. I don't like having someone look over your shoulder while programming, or looking over someone else's shoulder while they are programming. It is exhausting. Collaborating in front of a whiteboard for a few hours is fine - I just don't want to do it all day. I also don't like feeling guilty taking a 5 minute break to read hacker news, or my personal email.

And I'm in the programming industry because I enjoy programming, so would want to work in an environment which I enjoy - and in today's market, i have the luxury of picking my employer.

I'm sure not everyone feels the same way, but I suspect I'm not alone in that opinion.

[philbo]

You looking over someone's shoulder or them looking over yours is definitely not pair programming though. It is exhausting though, I agree with that part.

[bjourne]

I'm exactly the same. And it annoys me greatly that being hypersocial and actually wanting to sit around in noisy environments is considered a prerequisite for many jobs. Not everyone wants to work that way.

[dlr720]

from my experience it's not everything or nothing. In fact I would say i have never done a XP project where we did everything, but we almost always add tests (what %, simply depends on the project), and they always gave us tremendous insights, we did some level (mostly very little) paring (on either super hard or super critical code) and it always helped get thru the code or provide what mgmt needed, more then one person to understand something that was too critical to leave to only one person. people need to enjoy what they do, and employers need to understand if you want strong talent you need both to work as a team (not shove "do it this way" down people's throats) and XP requires BUY IN. - BTW I am a CTO who has been pushing XP on all dev projects for the past 5 years and I don't code :-)