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by Sam Gentile.
Original Post: Pair Programming is Tiring
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As I mentioned in a previous post, our Agile team does all the practices of XP including Pair Programming. I had forgotten how exhausting Pair Programming is. As Agile Advice states, “Another downside to pair programming that doesn't get discussed as often is that it is tiring work. After a day of pairing, the team is usually exhausted.” I am finding that after a day of work, I am going home totally mentally drained but that is good. We are trying to maintain Ideal Hours of 5 out of 8 hours a day. More than that seems too much. I love this about Pair Programming though, as two of us are totally fused at the mind level on the problem, collaborating on design at the same time as well as instant code reviews. We are deriving a lot of benefit from it from all the items that the Agile Advice column states. It also states “Pair programming appears to be the most controversial of all the Extreme Programming (XP) practices. It invokes such a violent emotional response in some people that they quickly dismiss all of XP just because of this one practice.”It also states the “biggest downside to pair programming is that it can push people well outside their comfort zones.” That's exactly its advantage. I want to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I want my pair to keep me fully engaged on the problem, away from reading blogs in the middle of doing our code and toward Egoless Programming. I want to be transparent, make mistakes and learn together toward iterating a solution. Pair Programming keeps my head in the game constantly and thats why it makes me tired.
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