What is the primary goal of pair programming?
Software development is a decision making process, it is about which parties should be involved, and which decisions enforce accountability on business and operations. Through the use of pair programming engineers leverage shared knowledge on a code base, which establishes stronger discipline, communication and performance. This is because they are accountable to each other. It also makes on-boarding significantly easier for any new joiners to the team. This makes the feedback loops quicker and more efficient as well as bringing better organization to largely disparate teams.
Below you can find a video recording of Jieke Pan, our VP of Engineering explaining about pair programming.
How can we get a pair of juniors working as efficiently as possible?
A good mix of skills is important within a development team so that people can learn from each other. It is recommended to pair a senior with a junior, because having a safe environment in which people can commit mistakes is the fastest way for them to learn. If 2 junior engineers are pairing don't worry, it is a key moment for you both to learn from each other.
I am not sure if mixing different skills (e.g. BE, FE) in pair programming is efficient?
Ideally, that is what Pair Programming was meant for, a whole team effort. However if you have never tried pair programming, I would advise to start small and experience it.
You can start with ‘pair code reviewing’ after you created a pull request. Instead of waiting for others' written input, sit with the person and get the code review done interactively.
When you feel comfortable with this approach, then start also trying to pair program with engineers from the same domain of expertise.
Once the whole team is feeling comfortable mixing their skills, then that is the moment you can apply Pair Programming on a whole team level.
From whom can I get more experience or support on using Pair Programming?
You can always reach out to us. Let’s talk.
Jieke Pan is CTO and VP Engineering at Mobiquity Europe. Jieke has over 15 years’ of experience in software engineering, solution architecture and technical leadership, with industrial domain experience across healthcare, eCommerce, digital banking, cloud and digital innovation. He started his career as researcher in the network security domain, where he also obtained his masters degree. As a software engineer and solution architect, he has worked for global companies such as Siemens, Sony and Infor. In 2017, he joined Mobiquity, where he has continued to build his technical and personal leadership experience. As a CTO, Jieke is a thought leader on how to use technology as a tool to achieve business outcomes.
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