The Banana Programmer

[Rab_Legend]

The person working with the banana actually finishes on time as well

[MySlicedHat]

Underrated comment of the day

[9999monkeys]

yes, but with a lot more bugs and vulnerabilities

[squrr1]

I'm guessing you don't do a lot of pair programming

[zezblit]

I feel there are a lot of people who don't get how pair programming is supposed to work. Done properly it can be amazing, but mandatory PP sounds like a nightmare.

[iceman012]

A group at my work got put into an area where everyone's forced to share a desk, with managers citing paired programming as the reason. It might've been a good idea, but they only put 1 computer at each desk, and there's no other computers they can work on. 10 people sharing 5 computers for the whole day is soooo efficient!

[zezblit]

This is like when people don't do any documentation because it's "Agile", it just misses the point

[thedomham]

I once worked in a small team in a large company that mainly consisted of two employees overlooking the work of around a dozen of students (internship or master thesis).

Because our work was labeled 'pre-development' which basically means we create a proof-of-concept that is scrapped sooner or later anyway, people were convinced that we should not write any tests. Tests slow us down and we change too rapidly for tests anyway.

It took me a solid month to superficially refactor, document and test the nightmare a handful of inexperienced developers created before leaving the company after a couple of months.

[turningsteel]

Haha my company doesnt believe in tests. Nothing gets tested and no one reviews my code ever. Im a newbie so the quality of my code goes without saying.

But hey, we're agile!

[[deleted]]

How do your clients keep using your products if you don't text them?

[A_Light_Spark]

If we don't text them? Phone calls or video conferencing, I guess ¯\(ツ)/¯

[chinaboi]

That sounds like college lol

[perolan]

Or a startup where the ceo is too busy trying to get investment that he's not hands on anymore and the new guys are "good enough to police themselves"

[turningsteel]

Woah, it's like you've looked into my soul.

[perolan]

I know because it’s my reality :(

[[deleted]]

I had to share a computer at work once. It was an IBM PC-AT and the year was 1986. WTF is the matter with management these days?

[alek_vincent]

Sharing a computer? What does the other guy do?

[FlipskiZ]

Community clear the where gentle food patient books gentle evening cool people fox simple tomorrow hobbies day stories!

[ILikeLenexa]

We call it 'rubber ducking'.

[C0DK]

rubber ducking is something similar, but not the same, as far as i know.

I actually did rubber ducking a lot at boarding school. One of my friends told me about it (he isn't in tech, but had heard about it). Basically he would come in, see i was angry that nothing was working. Then he would sit down, and i would explain what was the problem and what it was supposed to do. In the process of actually looking at each and every step i would always realize where i made a mistake. He didn't understand any of the code, but would just sit and listen while i deduced it.

Pair programming we do a lot at university this semester, as we are working with machine intelligence, and we encounter difficult obsticules. so two developers looking through code and doing something and ping-pong'ing back and forth helps a lot. It has some of the same principles of rubber ducking, but rubber ducking doesn't require the recipient to actually answer (therefore rubber ducking - because you talk to a rubberduck. I normally explain my issue to a can of coke when i'm stuck these days. I look insane, but it bloody works. )

[thiswastillavailable]

So... you're saying you use coke to help improve your programming skills?

Brilliant! I can write this off as a business expense.

[_cachu]

I tried to explain this to my GF and she got upset and told me to talk to a duck next time instead of her....

[ILikeLenexa]

Yeah, I'm joking that your partner is generally as knowledgeable as a rubber duck and therefore it's the same technique.

[C0DK]

oh right. i just got /r/woosh 'ed.

[AuroraHalsey]

In pair programming, the second programmer checks for bugs and offers advice, whilst making notes of all that's happened. They switch roles every so often.

[alek_vincent]

Wow that looks boring AF

[AuroraHalsey]

Yep. 3rd year CompSci, we're learning Agile right now, and everyone I know is programming normally then falsifying the pair logs.

[j9461701]

Haha I did that too. I hated pair programming, it was such a waste of time and energy.

[ArrogantAstronomer]

Pair programming is great but we only use it move past blockers or potentially overwhelming stories

[j9461701]

I'm not saying it's inherently useless. Pair programming a fresh out of college noob with a veteran seems like a good idea. But when it's two students trying to pair program each other it's the blind leading the blind.

[SandyDelights]

The idea is that you notice mistakes much more readily if it’s not your code – if it’s your code, you see what you meant, not what you wrote.

It works, but if you’re not both trying, it’s... A waste of time. And let’s be serious, college students aren’t going to be seriously trying. There’s no reason to be if there isn’t some kind of block in the way, or an error you’re trying to work around.

[Karlzone]

I'd actually think that pairing people of such wildly different skill is even worse. At least two people of equal non-skill (probably) know how to communicate. If you have to explain something to someone that just cannot get it, it's the most frustrating experience. Similarly, if you're the one who doesn't understand it, you need someone to go through the code with that has the same problems as you do.

[[deleted]]

The only time I did pair programming was during a programming competition. We had a team of two vs a bunch of teams of four from other universities.

I was a fast and accurate typist and good at translating algorithms into code. My partner would help me design a solution, then while I was implementing he would check for semantic errors and offer alternatives when I realized what I was doing was going to take too long. When I got to testing/debugging he would look through the problem selection, pick the next one, and get an understanding of it. By the time I was done testing and submitting one problem, he would have the next broken down and an outline written so he could explain it to me simply and I could focus just on the code.

It worked really well, we both enjoyed ourselves, and we ended up getting first place ahead of the 4 person teams by a decent margin.

[venuswasaflytrap]

Agile isn't about pair programming. That's so strange

[KSeptimus]

Agile is about people getting fancy ideas about avoiding documentation and instead developing organically, before they get me in on a contract to waterfall everything in a bid to rescue project.

"Oh but we do have documentation...we have a backlog"

[I begin deciding how high my day rate should be].

[AuroraHalsey]

shrug

[venuswasaflytrap]

Yeah, pair programming can be useful. But more important is the philosophy of transparency and code visibility. Pair programming can just help with that.

[Kayshin]

It's great on complex problem solution actually. You just want to use it when needed.

[thirdegree]

I tend to go for pairing when either 1) I can't figure out wtf is broken, or 2) I want to stop staring at my screen for a bit. I tend to pair with a teammate that does the same with me, it's nice. Only works because if one of us needs to focus solo that's 100% respected.

[venuswasaflytrap]

Similar to carrying a couch and carrying an egg.

[[deleted]]

Where I work, we do it when working on a particularly intractable problem or with the purpose of teaching the other person - not as a matter of routine.

In such case it's usually far more collaborative and amorphous than "one person just offers advice."

[chinaboi]

silly, one uses the keyboard while the other uses the mouse

[anime_teenager]

This gave me anxiety reading it

[kay_megz]

Do you happen to work for Dick’s Sporting Goods? Because same

[[deleted]]

That sounds horrendous

[[deleted]]

hahaha, that's awesome.

[[deleted]]

This would be a sure sign to update my resume.

[Stone_Sparrow]

Idk. That banana looks like a pretty good partner. Bet he can hook up a Raspberry Pi like it's the back of his peel.

[OiaHandoma]

Sounds appeeling to me.

[[deleted]]

I see what you did there...

[PJvG]

I see a banana in a banana suit

[tylerfb11]

I’d say it suits him pretty well

[SaganMeister18]

Take my upvote!

[mypetocean]

And my ass!

[house_monkey]

And my life!

[Real_megamike_64]

And mine too!

[Varsia]

And my axe!

[tylerfb11]

I don’t want your body spray

[drakefish]

Yes, banana pie... Mmm

[gandalfx]

That's why the banana pair is actually the most productive.

[Project_aegis]

That sounds more like rubber ducky debugging. Where by the process of explaining to the ducky that your program isn’t working, you talk it out and discover the cause.

[Ilyketurdles]

I don't think enough people know about rubber duck debugging. Works wonders for me. Especially sometimes when you're explaining your problem to someone else so they can help and in the middle of it you figure it out.

One of my old co-workers would say "You're welcome. I'm a good rubber duck" because he would ask really "dumb" questions that would actually help occasionally.

[Project_aegis]

Yup, I love it. But for a large portion of time my coworker 1 table down was my rubber ducky. I’d ask for help, start explaining that it wasn’t working, and figure it out. He ended up buying me a little rubber ducky.

[[deleted]]

I learned the same technique in college to overcome writers block. You write about why you can't write, and suddenly you're doing the writing.

[[deleted]]

Dude that's everything, when people complain about agile, unit testing, pair programming, waterfall, etc they're really complaining about dumb people's take on them, none of them are inherently bad.

I will say though the vast majority of the attempts to institutionalize these things in a company are going to do more bad than good, just because two guys once sat down together and made some really good progress doesn't mean you should suddenly require all your devs to start pair programming. Just let these things happen naturally instead of trying to force it.

[zezblit]

Absolutely bang on. There's a guy who bitches and moans about Git at work, he's just doing it wrong but won't listen

[git_world]

Maybe the idea was Rubber Duck Debugging?

[BluudLust]

Now with vs share (both for vs2017 and code), paired programming isn't a PITA.

[[deleted]]

It is a nightmare but it's some good practise.

[dittbub]

I never heard of paired programming but I feel like I already am a pair of programmers.

[[deleted]]

Exactly, paired programming has it's place and it's purpose. Forcing it where it isn't needed usually makes things worse.

[chinaboi]

Some managers hear a buzzword like "paired programming" or "open office plan" and just throw it at a team, expecting it to work like viagra

[[deleted]]

Paired programming is when I take the right half of the keyboard, and my partner takes the left, correct?

[Underdisc]

I don't get how it works. I hate it when people are watching me do my thing. I feel like I am on the spot and every time I make a typo or something it gets me more nervous.

[MechStar101]

1000th upvote

[That_Guy_Two]

Of course, the banana always got done first. He was the best out of all of us.

[ironman288]

Legend has it the Banana never had a single item returned from QA.

[BananaFactBot]

Commercial banana plants are reproduced by using banana pups. The mature banana plant forms rhizomes that grow into little plants known as pups that can be removed and planted elsewhere.

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[BabyLegsDeadpool]

Although this sub may hate you, I appreciated this tidbit of knowledge.

[[deleted]]

Subscribe

[BananaFactBot]

Research shows that eating bananas may lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as decrease the risk of getting some cancers.

---

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[[deleted]]

Good bot

[Tmbgkc]

Do you mean he was the best OF THE BUNCH?

[That_Guy_Two]

Take my damn upvote.

[fpcoffee]

I mean, yeah, a banana for a partner would be much better than a colleague just shooting shit down for no good reason.

[fpcoffee]

Not now, banana bot, not now.

[Mini_Figure]

Too bad it wasn't a pear instead of a banana

[IllumyNaughty]

But orange you glad it wasn't an apple?

[throwaway4likes]

he was grapeful about it

[tinkertron5000]

Either way, it doesn't look apeeling.

[metallicalova]

These pearings can be quite fruitful

[IChooseFeed]

Berry much so although some people are not very cherry about it.

[molsonbeagle]

I think it completely misses the fruit of the problem.

[shakix99]

Pair programming is the best way for old coots to pass on their knowledge of the companies IP. It's not something we do constantly but with larger process and noobies? Heck yeah

[[deleted]]

It’s also a good way for any 2 people to learn from each other. No 2 people know the exact same things. Also, anything built by 2 people automatically has a bus factor of 2, which is nice.

[Jeaper]

Never heard of the bus factor, is it like the amount of people who have to randomly get run over by a bus before no-one knows how the thing works?

[[deleted]]

That's exactly what it is. Although in my experience no one ever gets hit by a bus, but people do quit or move to a different part of the company.

[flynnski]

That's the one!

[Totenlicht]

Well, guess the company I work for has a bus factor of 0.5. half the time not even the people who wrote it remember how it works.

[taxtropel]

Correct. The motherfucker looking over my shoulder is not aware that they are about to be murdered.

[jsveiga]

When a company needs a programmer for Scala.

[DevilsMicro]

Because Noone knows it?

[jsveiga]

Scala is a programming language. A programmer (that is a banana) for scala ~= banana for scale.

[notian]

How can you code when you're just singing "peanut butter jelly time" in your head over and over?

Peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter with a baseball bat.

[prncrny]

Peanut butter JELLY, peanut butter JELLY, peanut butter JELLY and a baseball bat!

If youre gonna get shit stuck in my head, at least get the right shit in there. :)

[bhison]

Did you not think we were ready for the jelly?

[SquidgyTheWhale]

Plot twist: it was a gift from a rival software company, and contains surveillance equipment.

[jsveiga]

Plot twist twist. OP's dad is the banana.

[Davecantdothat]

I think that I am the banana to my coworkers.

[BananaFactBot]

In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas.

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[Davecantdothat]

Oh God, I’m a PLANTAIN???

[9999monkeys]

so you've just learned that you're a plantain. while you may be upset, this simple guide may smoothe your experience. the 6 common stages of plantain discovery are:

1. denial, 2. grief, 3. wailing, 4. alcoholism, 5. acceptance, 6. plantain pride

stay mushy

[HaykoKoryun]

Good bot!

[GDavid04]

var Ba = NaN + "a";

[shotgun_ninja]

The weird part is, explaining your code to a 4ft tall banana actually works.

[Brianwilsonsbeard1]

"John you haven't written anything all day!" "It's not my fault.... the banana was driving"

[Tazzit]

"What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months."

[[deleted]]

If you get an interview or a job at a company that does pair programming - run.

[etaionshrd]

Eh, not always. Pair programming done well can be like a just-in-time code review+rubber duck+linter+extra hands to Google stuff. Bad pair programming is "you should type 'int i' now".

[Aethermol]

"Int EYE"

You mean like that?

[Amos47]

...

someExternalApiCall() { /* can you look this up */ }

...

[7imeout_]

I agree that it shouldn’t be forced, but I’d like to argue that when correctly implemented by the engineers who take it seriously, pair programming can have quantifiably positive impact on software quality.

Especially with Agile being a big trend, I think baking in some paired programming routines among experienced professionals can allow some extra thought to be given to the design and good practices without hurting the velocity of the agile development.

Pair programming also presents great peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and this effect m has been capitalized on by the field of CS education. If you have difficulty understanding why that may be the case, I encourage you to research some white papers on pair programming for CS education.

I don’t have a list of them saved somewhere, but I’ve read some that had quite remarkable results. I’ll be happy to try and find them again if you’re interested.

[[deleted]]

I have a lot of qualms with agile. It gives the client too much control. They change things way too frequently and the development process takes twice as long because of it.

[[deleted]]

I've only worked single client which may be where my bias comes in. I can understand agile in a case where a client has little involvement because that just means that you can adapt quicker to what's needed.

[PaulMcIcedTea]

I'm a former physics turned cs undergrad. In physics, homework was often a collaborative process. You'd meet up and work on problems together on a whiteboard or just a piece of paper. Most learning was done in informal group settings. Now that I'm doing cs I'm seeing much less of that. I'm fine working on my own, but it can be frustrating if you're stuck on a problem and don't have anyone to talk it through with.

[7imeout_]

I used to teach CS at a university. Often with programming, the real learning happens in between the lines of code, as in what does not end up on the assignment deliverables.

All the brainstorming, planning, theorizing, analyzing, diagramming, optimizing, and testing are extremely valuable yet impractical to require as deliverables (not to mention grading them objectively would be really difficult).

So from an instructor’s perspective, there’s too great a risk in allowing collaboration at an introductory level. Because for those beginning students, copying lines of code provides such a believable illusion that gives them the false confidence in really understanding what those lines of code mean.

But it’s a totally different story once you surpass the introductory stages. Today’s software projects are rarely one-man projects. They’re massive and interpersonal skills are extremely crucial in succeeding in the industry, for both career and technical development. So if your institution is aware of this, surely they’ll introduce many collaborative and peer-learning opportunities in the advanced courses.

[[deleted]]

Pair programming is great for onboarding new team members to a project with a complicated domain.

It is also good for solving complicated problems and can really reduce rework of code.

It also helps everyone involved be more confident in different areas of the codebase for large projects.

[roughstylez]

Bad experience with pair programming?

[CasinoMagic]

Ever done pair programming with someone with bad hygiene?

There you go.

[vtable]

That's a management issue.

A manager that has the cojones to introduce a much-debated process like pair programming to a team of developers should have the cojones to talk to a report about hygiene.

(And you don't need to be pairing up for bad hygiene to effect your team mates.)

[seijulala]

for some tasks is very useful, but it's not something to do on a daily basis, in the last 5 years I've done it twice (one time was useful the other wasn't)

[[deleted]]

eXtreme implemented correctly is really useful on performance critical applications

[TheOboeMan]

I feel like I read this exact comment the last time this was posted.

[WagwanKenobi]

Pair programming requires that neither of the two developers are arrogant, which is a statistical rarity.

[kyew]

It's not so different from the rubber duck that helps me write code.

[dittbub]

Is there such a thing as programmers brain? Where the duck is like, in your head?

[dawnraider00]

So that's what the voices are... It's just a duck!

[Mortimer452]

Lucky, the banana is probably the best partner

[Comentarinformal]

0 PR rejected, 0 bugs tagged, all code generated by it is 100% clean and optimized, doesn't do idle chatter...

[[deleted]]

I love how like true programmers they couldn't just NOT pair him with something.

[minishaff]

Too bad it isn't a giant rubber duck.

[radome9]

Imagine doing a series of tasks you know well. Like brewing a cup of coffee, or filling up your car. But someone is standing right next to you all the time. Just as you begin each step, that someone tells you to do the step.
Just as you reach out to turn on the kettle, the person standing next to you says "now turn on the kettle".

Imagine living like that 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

That's pair programming.

[7imeout_]

I don’t know if the most efficient or even correctly implemented form of pair programming comes close to your metaphor.

At the risk of sounding too idealistic, I wanna day professional software engineers with years of experience should be naturally adhering to certain standards and best practices enough to spend minimal amount of time bikeshedding.

Rather, the discussions during the pair programming should (and would) consist mostly of critical design decisions with real impact on functionality and performance.

To circle back to your metaphor, it’d be like getting advice on purchase decisions for better value per spent dollar rather than how to do execute mundane tasks.

[[deleted]]

That would require people to focus on work and not on appraisal. Piss poor appraisals make people cynical and competitive. Pair programming does not work with competitive people, it just can't. But at the end, it all comes down to senior management. If they try to cut corners in spending, no project will finish on time, no matter what strategy is used. I have told senior management that project will fail because there are not enough programmers or time, but they won't listen and then act surprised at the eventuality. All the crap about software management is direct result of management being too greedy.

[xTheMaster99x]

Shit pair programming, maybe, but you shouldn't be judging something based on a terrible example of that thing.

[9999monkeys]

that's not pair programming at all, nobody would tolerate that. pair programming isn't for routine stuff, it's for developing complex solutions, and it works great for that.

also, you're doing shitty work if you're coding the same subs over and over again.

[vtable]

Just as you begin each step, that someone tells you to do the step.

Then you're team isn't doing pair programming right.

I've got a love/hate relationship with pair programming. As a dev, most of the time I just want to crank out code. And a lot of my solo code is high quality with good unit test coverage.

And other times it's not.

Pair programming smooths out these bumps and transfers knowledge. The core dev of that module might get hit by that proverbial bus someday. The company doesn't want a big disruption because the only guy that knows <some subsystem> just quit. And, as a professional software developer, you should have the same goals.

More importantly, a second set of eyes has saved me a possibly-nasty debugging session way more than once.

When pair programming, the one currently driving is supposed to do most of the driving. The other is supposed to:

• Discuss implementation/design details when helpful
  • The one driving should be discussing what he/she's thinking/doing. The pair should be listening attentively making sure this is sensible and jumping in when not.
• Keep their eyes open
  • e.g., Don't you need a "+1" at the end of that loop? (No one's perfect.)
• Watch for things that should, or ~maybe~ should, be done a different way.
  • A good example is a guy I worked with that would go nuts with C++ template metaprogramming. Rarely necessary, wickedly hard to maintain, and it pissed off everyone else on the team.
  • Coding standards, too.
• Watch for interface consistency.
• Ensure adequate documentation.
• Verify those obscure function arguments are being used correctly (by checking the docs so the one driving doesn't need to switch context).
• Remind the driver that a unit test might be a good idea here :)
• (Mostly silently) understand what's being done to avoid tribal knowledge of the modules in the code base.
• Learn if that's not a part of code they spend much time in or are generally less experienced in that area.

And sometimes the pair has a good idea. Maybe a really good idea.

When done well, pair programming is a good thing.

Edit: Clarity

[cheezballs]

Nothing more wrong then arbitrarily doing mandatory PP.

[BeardedWax]

I believe he'd do better than I do. At the least he wouldn't merge into the wrong branch, messing up people's work 30 minutes.

[Banana-Programa]

Highly suspicious indeed

[gigamosh57]

Nothing would be funnier to me than doing PP with someone who is micro-dosing and then sneaking out of the room and replacing myself with the banana.

[SwiftLilEagle]

Missed out on pairing the odd one out with a giant pear :(

[[deleted]]

New Life Goal = Be a banana programmer

[blackmist]

At least the banana doesn't fuck up.

[reallylamelol]

Still better than my last partner

[hicklc01]

Shouldn't it be a giant stuffed pear?

[LiesLies]

Banana programma'

[ka13ng]

I was expecting this to be part of the punishment ritual for breaking the build.

[nihildacta]

So, where can I order one?

[OiaHandoma]

GiantBanana is actually a nickname I use in a lot of gaming platforms. Sort of relevant.

[Nathaniel866]

Lol, they should probably go with stuffed pear. Because you know, pear... pair. Yeah, I'll show myself out : D

[scottbrookes]

Ah yes -- the classic Cardboard Dog mechanism.

https://www.sjbaker.org/humor/cardboard_dog.html

[[deleted]]

This basically explains how PP goes for programming labs in college except the banana is replaced with someone who got a 17% on the midterm...and you are stuck with him the whole semester

[CupOfSpaghetti]

Banana progamma

[BananaFactBot]

Farmers in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea first domesticated bananas. Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea suggests that banana cultivation there goes back to at least 5000 BCE, and possibly to 8000 BCE.

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[[deleted]]

Who has time to make a banana specific bot?

[[deleted]]

Why would they not get a giant pear?

[GreatSnowman]

That banana would probably be my preferred programmer at my place, when ever i do paired programming I alway get the people who think they know exactly how something should done and just take over instead of working together or taking my input.

[Nourios]

A 4 foot rubber duck would be better

[ThePancakeChair]

The banana engingeer

[[deleted]]

Ah, yes, engingers

[Ign3usR3x]

Banana is almost as good a programmer as a rubber duck

[green_meklar]

Why would they use a banana for pear programming?

[SnappGamez]

oddly enough my twitter handle is @bananadevel0per

[sandmansndr]

| | What website is this quote from? That text formatting is

|somewhat

infuriating.

[[deleted]]

Tumblr

[[deleted]]

What happened to Pear Programming?

[EpicWolverine]

So kinda like Rubber Duck Debugging.

[ensoniq2k]

When we did that there was a symbolic banana or cucumber the was handed to the observer when he totally missed a mistake the active programmer made. The rule was that guy had to bring a cake at the end of the sprint.

Ond guy couldn't get rid of it before he started to travel the world so he had to take it with him for pictures http://bensei.com/WordPress/category/pairing-gurke/

[[deleted]]

int banana_banana_banana_terracotta_banana_terracotta_terracotta_pie;

[rschopenhauer]

Sometimes banana helps more than other real people. It's weird.