Pair programming is one of the original practice of eXtreme programming, but it is also one of the least used by Agile software development teams. In his blog post, Alisdair McDiarmid explains how Customer.io uses pair programming with remote teams.
Customer.io has been growing rapidly and its teams work in different location. Pairing has been used to allow people in different teams to work together virtually. Even if the technical aspects of pairing might be tedious, the practice has bring many benefits that include improved collaboration, quicker bug fixing and faster feedback. The blog post explains all the benefits of having two brains focusing on certain tasks. The most important benefit is that participants are learning quicker.
Alisdair McDiarmid wrote “For me, whether remote or in person, the most important reason for pairing is an obvious one: learning. I’ve already learned a ton of things from my new colleagues, and I’ve been able to teach them a little of what I know too. This can be something as simple as a neat Vim trick, or as involved as the history of a collection of software components. Every time I pair with someone, I get a little better as a software engineer, and those tiny improvements add up to create a more effective engineering team.”
Read the full blog post on http://customer.io/is-open/How-Pairing-Powers-Remote-Teams.html