Suck it and see
As the article says, it seems like an odd principle. But as someone who has paired for the last 8-9 years after 10 years without it, it's amazing the difference it makes to the quality of the work that's produced and the enjoyment of coding. Here are some examples of the kinds of things that regularly go wrong which can regularly be fixed
Just spent 20 minutes debugging something because a parenthesis is in the wrong place? Chances are your pair would have spotted it as soon as you'd typed it
Just implemented a requirement as written, then realised it was written ambiguously and you'd interpreted it incorrectly? Your pair might have caught it straight up
Just written a bit of code from scratch? Your pair may know of somewhere else in the system it's already been done
Hate looking at "Keith's" code because he codes like a nutter? Pairing will help beat the bad practices out
Someone leaves and takes a bunch of knowledge with them? Pairing spreads the love
Someone new joins? Pairing helps them get their feet under the table
Oddly, we've now started "loose pairing", where we pair where we think we need to. Guess what? Pairing has practically stopped, our bug rate has increased and our productivity has slowed
Try it, at least, before dismissing it. It works...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
