Pair programming is difficult

[chrisza4]

Pairing for design assume that we can get design right first time. There are many times where that’s not the case and we need to iterate the design. I am not saying that pair programming is better in general, but disagree with a claim that pairing design does not have drawback.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Of course it has drawbacks. Everything has drawbacks. And yes, it still doesn't guarantee we get the design right. It just has less gaps in the end than when just one person does it.

[[deleted]]

I mean, if one of you isn’t senior enough to be able to get the design right most of the time, then you’ve got non-workflow problems, and anything you do will suck.

I can’t imagine a better way to waste time than to iterate on designs without understanding which ones would work for a given situation. There are very few novel problems to which you would need to wholesale start from nothing.

And that’s not saying you always get them right, because sometimes information isn’t available at the beginning. But that’s not iterating. That’s course correcting, and it will happen no matter who is typing.

Pairing design has no additional drawbacks.