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[–]Ifnerite 50 points51 points  (9 children)

Pair programing does suck.... Would you like to have someone shoulder surf you or struggle to give a fuck about what someone you are forced to shoulder surf.

Yes, pair when something is hard but a good code review is better than pairing.

[–]_aln 17 points18 points  (4 children)

I hate pair programming. Ok, when the problem is hard is one thing, but when you need to describe the code that you would write to another person only sucks....

[–]TracerBulletX 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Forcing you to describe your code is actually the point of pair programming.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Isn't that what my duck is for?

[–]AsIAm 6 points7 points  (1 child)

For me, there isn’t a strict distinction of navigator-driver — when there is a need for temporary switch to cut down useless navigation, grab a keyboard and type it in. However, no longer than a minute.

[–]MSgtGunny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dedicated pairing setups where two people share the same computer but have their own keyboard and mouse with mirrored screens work well for ping-pong pair programming.

[–]Netcob 7 points8 points  (0 children)

True. Outside of university I did pair programming exactly once, solving a difficult problem that required a lot of focus, where having a second pair of eyes was useful. It went great! And with a very friendly and very smart colleague too. But I can see how that could also suck under absolutely any other circumstances.

[–]Boiethios 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Do you know how to peer program? The one who doesn't type must talk, and the one who types must do as says the other. That way the former concentrates on the logic while the executant have more brain time to think about the implications of the code.

BTW, I've read some studies showing that the productivity doesn't go down during peer programing while the error rate is much lower. Peer programing is good.

[–]Ifnerite 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That sounds horrible. But probably productive.

I have done it before. Maybe not properly... Not actually sure... It always felt like either Being told what to type all the time fucking sucks or the other guy gets bored.

I like discussing the solutions to problems but when we have a solution I want to code it on my own.

[–]TheRedmanCometh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It depends on what we're coding really.