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Discussion on: Why I'm not a fan of pair programming

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Andre Rubin

It just sounds like you didn't give yourself enough opportunities to really try pair programming (and even mob programming), as you said it yourself.

There are so many different ways of trying this technique. There is the traditional way, which seems that it was the one you tried. But there is also promiscuous pairing, micro-pairing, TDD pairing, etc.

My eureka moment of pair programming was attending a Woody Zuill's talk (about mob programming), when he mentioned a strategy where, if you have an idea and want to input it in the code, you have to use someone else's hands. That is, the one in the keyboard (the driver) is inputting the idea of the navigator. This would solve some of the issues you mentioned in the article.

So, I'd say try a few more pairing/mobbing strategies, because the benefits of pairing way outweigh its cons. As Woddy said: "No one is better than all of us."