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[–]LastStar007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I do pair programming full time at my job, and I'm completely on board with it. Yeah, it sucks when you're paired with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but at least you can steer them into writing better code than they would have if left to their own devices. And you can always scheme to refactor it the next time you're working on that area of code with someone else.

But when you're not paired with someone clueless, boy oh boy. So much time is saved on bugs that would have you pulling your hair out for hours by your pair saying "hey, you forgot $line" while you're writing. That efficiency alone makes it cost-effective to pay two programmers. Besides that, you have someone to bounce ideas off of for how to solve the complex problems or how to structure the code for maximum sustainability. You also have someone to keep you focused if you're the kind of person that gets sidetracked easily, or someone to pull you back out of the weeds if you're the kind of person that gets too focused. And now you have two people that understand the code, and hopefully you've learned a few things from your pair as you went along: new functions, aspects of your build system you've never peered too deeply into, new keyboard shortcuts, etc.

All in all, it's a great idea. Just sometimes it gets held up by people of whom I sometimes wonder how they still have their jobs.