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Pair Programming: Agile in Practice Help Sheet

Pair programming involves two programmers working together at the same machine to write production code. This ensures all code is reviewed and results in better design, testing, and code. Programmers frequently swap pairs daily to promote sharing of knowledge. Contrary to popular belief, pairing may produce better code in similar time as individuals. While some object without trying it, pairing takes practice and discipline to see benefits and should only be applied sensibly based on team maturity and complexity of work.

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31 views

Pair Programming: Agile in Practice Help Sheet

Pair programming involves two programmers working together at the same machine to write production code. This ensures all code is reviewed and results in better design, testing, and code. Programmers frequently swap pairs daily to promote sharing of knowledge. Contrary to popular belief, pairing may produce better code in similar time as individuals. While some object without trying it, pairing takes practice and discipline to see benefits and should only be applied sensibly based on team maturity and complexity of work.

Uploaded by

Ramesh Madurai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Agile in Practice Help Sheet

Pair Programming

Pair Programming is one of the core practices of extreme programming and literally means that all
production software is written by two programmers, sitting side by side, at the same machine. This
practice ensures that all production code is reviewed by at least one other programmer, and results
in better design, better testing, and better code.
The actual practice of pairing requires programmers to frequently (daily or multiple times per day)
swap pairs to promote sharing of knowledge throughout the team. As pairs switch, everyone gets
the benefits of everyone’s specialised knowledge.
Contrary to popular belief that having
two programmers doing ‘one
programmer’s job’ is highly inefficient
there’s evidence that suggests that
pairing produces better code in about
the same time as programmers
working singly.
Some programmers object to pair
programming without ever trying it. It
takes practice and discipline to do it
well, and you need to do it for a few
weeks to be able to see results and
appreciate the benefits.
Like many other practices applying it
blindly without using common sense is
not recommended.
Things to consider:
Maturity and experience of the team—more mature and experienced teams tend to have a
faster uptake.
Complexity of the code—many teams practice pairing for complex tasks and split up for ones
that are considered straight forward.
Time-to-market (TTM) and post release lifecycle — Faster TTM might be worth the higher cost
of development in exchange for better quality code that will pay off over time.

Is it just for programmers/developers?


Pair programming by its very name is for the development team, however, business Subject Matter
Experts and IT as well as business and other business people are now ‘pairing’ with the same
success.

REFERENCES
http://xprogramming.com/xpmag/whatisxp
http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/artem/pair-programming-what-researches-say

Source: Agile Academy Website http://www.agileacademy.com.au/agile/about_agile

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