I was on a team for 2.5 years where pair programming was our default—we did it all the time and the only time someone solo’d was when there were an uneven number of us. I enjoyed it immensely and found it mostly positive. It was far more about de-siloing, creating a shared style, and bonding than it was about mentoring. People paired up regardless of level and we actually switched pairs daily. This means that if a story took three days to complete then the two people who started it weren’t the same two people who finished it. This was rough to get used to but once we did it was great.
Also as mentioned, “pairing” in our definition didn’t mean you couldn’t decide to break off and think through things on your own for a bit. We actually wouldn’t do that too often but when we did we would still pair off each morning. This gives you a dedicated point of contact for the day.
Some of the downsides have been mentioned. One particular one for sure is that it’s exhausting, but I found it to be a good kind of exhausting. And of course, if you don’t get along with your teammates then it can’t work. You also have to be pretty mature about being able to reach quick consensus (ie, get really good at “disagree and commit”, which is a key skill to have even outside of pairing).
I see the big positives as de-siloing and shared ownership. There was no code that “belonged” to anyone. No one ever said, “I don’t want to touch that because it’s so-and-so’s code”. Also, no one was afraid to go on vacation because at least three people had fairly intimate knowledge of each part of the system.
Also in my experience pairing is faster than soloing. Again, this is something that is only true if you’ve developed a rapport with and trust your team members. When you get on other peoples’ wavelengths, however, you stop feeling you need all of that time alone to think through a problem and it becomes fun working out a solution with someone. Again, this can involve stretches of solo time where you split up then reconvene.
I could go on and on about this and have been meaning to write about it but still haven’t gotten around to it (I have a small draft… not counting all this, lol).
