An Adventure Into XP - Series 1: Why You Shouldn't Pair Program

In my somewhat limited experience I have only come across a few reasonable and defendable arguments for why you should not be pair programming. Here they are in no particular order:

- You are alone

• I'm pretty sure it is impossible to pair program by yourself.

- You are totally anti-social

• Pair programming does require a certain level of communication skill and inter-personal skills so it may now be suited to people that truly can not handle other people.

- You have other responsibilities that need to be addressed throughout the day

• This is one that I have run into quite a bit. As I need to pay attention to my email for CommunityWalk support and sales inquiries, it is difficult for me to focus whole heartedly on something for more than an hour or so. Even though pair programming does make it far more efficient to be interrupted, it is still not easy nor very fun to disrupt the flow or a pair programming session on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure it annoys some of the people I work with at the very least.

So far that's all I got and I am not even sure that the second reason, "You are totally anti-social", is all that valid. Basically I think that pair programming is a huge improvement to the programming process. I am going to detail some of the main reasons why it is so good in my next post.