What are the benefits of peer programming?
Programming was almost always done by one person, who creates, analyzes, tests and compiles the code, All by himself. Until a time that appeared programming in pairs, which said that programming in pairs was more effective, faster and spent less resources than a "solitary"programming.
This practice is widely used by agile methodology XP (and x treme P rogramming). What are the benefits of having someone By Your Side while you program? Will this really make work faster?
1 answers
The summary of beneficence is usually:
Two Heads think better than one.
In complicated problems there may be advantage, especially if used punctually. People don't get too packed into something, but it can also occur of not only one, but two people getting packed.
There is a kind of automatic code review. But some question this. There are those who say that they have fewer errors, but there is no evidence that this occurs more intensively than others techniques. It can even happen but with a high cost.
Some say that the code can get better because it has someone criticizing there at the time, but this depends a lot on who is on the side, and can bring conflicts when this occurs.
Some people often say it's more efficient like this, but I've never seen proof. There may be some cases that a problem that one of the people is having difficulty and the other sees a way more easily, but it needs to be much gained to compensate because it's two people doing one job.
May be interesting as a form of training for a less experienced programmer, but it effectively eliminates the advantages that are said to exist in this modality. It can also serve as an evaluation of employees monitoring the process of each one, but there are people who do not perform well when they are being monitored.
It may be interesting for more than one person on the team to understand the process that was used to arrive in that code, but it could be a Band aid in something wrong on the team.
It's harder to procrastinate. And it can keep morale high, but the opposite can also occur. When you involve psychology techniques can be problem, ignore people's needs.
Some people tend to say that they have other advantages that are even more difficult to measure and that they are not technical. You can better socially integrate the team, but it can generate conflict.
Exist disadvantages, the most obvious is that two people are doing the same job, is kind of one changing the lamp and the other looking or talking to not forget to thread right. Many of the disadvantages that are usually placed in the background can be disadvantages or at least generate a disadvantage because of that.