Re: Agile Development, Anyone?

On 8/29/2011 11:45 AM, John Yeung wrote:

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Joe Pluta<joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Two people doing one job? Just to break even you have to
finish the job in half the clock time with the same number of
errors.

I agree that ultimately, the best programmers probably are most
productive on their own or collaborating in more traditional ways
(talking to coworkers from time to time, but not spending hours
together at the same terminal or workstation). I think pair
programming could have value, even among the best programmers, but I
doubt it should be the primary way of working, certainly not for every
programmer on every project.

I'm with you on this, John. As you and others on this thread have pointed out there are a number of soft benefits that could arise from pair programming. However, to me none of them are truly unique to the style, I don't think, and many can be addressed in other ways that aren't quite so overhead intensive. That doesn't mean PP is NEVER a good idea, just that its use should be tempered just like any tool. The problem with most Programming Philosophies that end up being spoken of with capital letters is that folks get really invested in the concept and pretty soon you have the evangelists and the early adopters forcing the issue even where it doesn't fit.

Joe