The Agile Samurai

Step 2: Development: Do the Work

What About Pair Programming?

Few agile/XP practices have attracted more attention and controversy than this one.

Pair programming is the act of two programmers sitting down at one computer and working together on a story.

Seeing two valuable resources sitting down at one computer would understandably make any manager nervous. They think their team’s productivity has just been halved, and that would be true if programming were merely typing.

But it’s not. And one good idea or innovation can often save teams a ton of work and rework later. With pairing you spread valuable knowledge and practices throughout the team, you catch more bugs early, and you increase code quality by having two people reviewing every ...