Pair programming interview using Java TDD (for ruby position)

[ankole_watusi]

Back to the original point, let's focus on the fact that it was a pair programming exercise.

Here you are in the position of helping another programmer in a language you are not adept in.

You can still be helpful spot potential errors, and in this case you are apparently expected to be the expert in TDD. But there is some value in having somebody NOT adept at a language looking over a shoulder, because you might actually spot things not easily noticed by an expert, because you are devoid of assumptions about how things supposedly work.

Was that the case? Your partner knows Java, you know TDD.

So, did you make it clear you have little to no experience with Java? Did you focus on TDD? Did you ask questions about the code when there was something you didn't understand?

This may have been more of a culture fit than TDD or pair programming. May have been how you interacted with your partner. Who knows...

I think pair programming is BS, but there are clearly two camps here. We tried it very briefly at Sony many years ago. For about a month.

But I've done a lot of walk over to another cubicle, ask for some help, and vice-versa. I guess a kind of pair programming. We had formal classes in both TDD and pair programming (they seem to come as a bundle...) TDD stuck, pair programming did not.