Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
Piiift! Paired programming... that's another idea that kind of came and went (under the guise of "Extreme Programming") ... here's how I saw (first hand) how paired programming worked:
One developer coding almost like mad, getting stuff done, occasionally maybe talking to the back seat driver, which then causes the first programmer to get off track, and the next thing you know you're trading fish stories. Meanwhile the FTE capacity is cut in half.
It's one of those things that sounds great at first, on paper, but then when you go to put it in practice, it doesn't work out so well.
This was a scary trend.

Do you know where it came from? It was based on a random theory in early education that sadly got put into practice for a few years with disastrous results. It "paired" each dumb kid in class with a smart kid. Made them work together, take tests together, and share a grade.

One of my kids was forced through this. It was a mess, basically a lost year of elementary school. Entirely discredited now of course.