Abstract

Pair programming -- two programmers working side-by-side at one computer collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code or test -- has been practiced in industry with great success for years. Higher quality products are produced faster. Yet, most who have not tried and tested pairprogramming reject the idea immediately as an overtly redundant, wasteful use of programming resources. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate through anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative evidence, that incorporating pair-programming into a software development process will help yield software products of better quality in less time with happier, more confident programmers. Supportive evidence comes from professional programmers and from the results of a structured experiment run with advanced undergraduate students at the University of Utah.

Citations