Comments for DevChix

Comment on Pair programming Issues by blackgeneral

blackgeneral — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:05:06 +0000

I have been pair programming full time for more than 3 years. I would not like to work for a company that does not do pair programming. I feel energized and ‘in the zone’ when working with my colleagues who are used to pair programming.

I have a couple open source projects I contribute to in my spare time. It can be fun working alone and experimenting with new stuff, but when it comes to serious work, I absolutely prefer pair programming. This is because I am a lot more productive, less frustrated, and I learn a lot from my pair (especially when you rotate pairs frequently). Pair programming has vastly improved my social and communication skills. Pairing with people a lot more experienced than me has greatly improved my programming skills, and has inspired me to become better coder.

I am a pair programming convert. If a company does not do pair programming, I would not like to work for them, period.

Comment on Pair programming Issues by gloriajw

gloriajw — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:45:22 +0000

I have to agree with Carol. I prefer to write code alone, in quiet mediation, then review it with peers. Pair programming is distracting for me, especially when working out all of the permutations of tough algorithms.

Comment on Pair programming Issues by Veera

Veera — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:33:51 +0000

I’ve never did any pair programming. But I’m sure it would be interesting to try it out. Lemme wait for an opportunity. :)

Comment on Pair programming Issues by carol

carol — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:14:37 +0000

I think pairing is especially useful for debugging or for learning code already written. But for creating new code it can be useful to think alone, without distractins

Comment on Pair programming Issues by Dave G

Dave G — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:58:57 +0000

I’m not interested in pair programming, regardless of how much more productive it may be. That’s why, in the past, I’ve told recruiters not to send me on interviews for positions that would require me to pair program.

To me, it’s no different than other workplace factors I might consider when looking for a new job. I prefer to code alone, so as long as there are jobs that let me do that, (and that’s the majority of development jobs) that’s all I’m willing to do.

Comment on Pair programming Issues by Urs Enzler

Urs Enzler — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:15:47 +0000

Nice post.
I think that to become good in pair programming, the developers need to practice it. There are developers that have to get used to it because they are first nervous to show how they work. The team needs to find a state of mind in which all members realize that it is not about finding the weakness of an individual but the strength of the pair. Once this mind shift has happend, the individuals see that pair programming is a great way to learn a lot of stuff (micro-process [how do I work, compared to my mate], tools, new shortcuts, TDD, and a lot more] in very little time. And the code gets better, too ;-)

We don’t pair programm all the time, but if a team meber feels that pairing would help him with his current problem then he is encouraged to get a team member beside him. This has even a positive effect on development velocity, because rather than spending a lot of time searching a solution for himself, the pair normally find a way much faster, with less technical debt in the code.

Cheers,
Urs

Comment on Pair programming Issues by Richard Conroy

Richard Conroy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:36:24 +0000

Pair Programming isn’t an automatic discipline. Just because we are software professionals doesn’t mean we are immediately able to work in this manner. It is a practice that must be learned.

When people face pairing for the first time, many of the things you mention here are a concern - that you will be in close proximity to somebody that you will not enjoy being around.

You can fix some of the minor things. Many organisations that pair program extensively will set up dedicated pairing environments with separate workstations. This has multiple advantages:
- your personal files remain private
- the pairing workstation can be standardised
- the pair team is isolated from distractions and their discussions will not distract others

You usually see a lot of other processes get introduced, like no phones/email in the pair lab.

Comment on An Introduction to Selenium IDE by Tejas Shah

Tejas Shah — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:26:48 +0000

Hi,

I need to fetch data from Excel sheet for various fields (Parametrization).
Please mail if possible.
Thanks for the support.

Comment on I Love Python: ReSTful DB CRUD dispatching using CherryPy by wotan

wotan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:56:19 +0000

Hi!

How can one implement this if one does not bind the CRUD controller to the root attribute?

In all examples:
root = CRUD_controller()

I noticed that things break doing this

root.sub_root = CRUD_controller()

Comment on Satchmo: Python Storefront out-of-the-box by Chris

Chris — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:14:57 +0000

I’m glad to hear that your initial foray into Satchmo is working out well. Let us know what we can do to improve upon the product!