Pair Programming again

I saw a local bank advertising a position to promote so called "sustainable software development" practices. These included Pair Programming, TDD, BDD and 100% code coverage.

I have written about Pair Programming before, but it needs re-iterating.

• The value of pair programming is not constant - it is a function of the problem, people and technologies at hand.


• If the problem at hand is not new or not complex the value is often significantly reduced.


• On common information systems / web projects (such as at this company) the problem at hand is often neither new nor complex.


• Therefore, if there is a project rule stating that all production code is to be paired on, the business value of the project will immediately be sub-optimal.

This is not rocket science. Consider a couple of competent developers pairing on the usual crud/plumbing code that makes up such a large proportion of these kinds of apps. What value is the second person really adding here vs doing something else?

Anecdotally, with skilled developers of reasonable talent and discipline, the pair programming time on these types of projects doesn't need to be above 50%.