Re: Agile Development, Anyone?

On 8/30/2011 2:53 PM, Evan Harris wrote:

I think it's a challenging concept and would be really interested in
trying it. I think one of the biggest hurdles would be that it
requires people to really put aside their egos when coding.

Interesting. I've been thinking about this, and maybe this is part of what I don't like. Personally, I don't want to put my ego aside when I program. Yes, I need to follow standards whenever appropriate (which is a lot of the time) but I also want to be able to move in a direction that makes sense at the time. I might make the code better, or more maintainable. Or this may be a one-off program, and it will allow me to try some new techniques.

And then there are times when I just go with my gut for reasons I can't even explain but which become clearer after I get more into the program. Of course, sometimes those gut hunches go awry and I have to remove something, but that should be my prerogative, and that sort of experimentation seems almost certainly to be diminished in a pair programming environment. Well, unless you have TWO experimenters in a pair, at which point you are going to get some really interesting code.

Anyway, I just wanted to talk this through. A lot of my concern with and pushback against formal pair programming is probably because I don't think it will make me any faster or better, and a lot of that is my ego talking. But then again, it ain't braggin' if you can do it... :)

Joe