What You Need to Know about Pair Programming At the expense of increased personnel cost, Pair Programming aims at increasing both the team productivity and the code quality as compared to conventional development. Pair programming is not one person passively watching the other type. Each programmer needs to play an active role in determining the design, implementation and tests. The pair works together on the task in hand while passing keyboard control back and forth between them, writing code and tests as they go. Pair programming comes with a host of benefits that include improved software quality, reduction in software maintenance cost, improved productivity and improved business continuity. There is a constant code review and most developers who work in pairs come up with twice as many solutions and work more than twice as fast as two developers on their own. Pair Programming aims at increasing both the team productivity and the code quality as compared to conventional development and usually uncovers mistakes that normally aren’t caught until the eleventh hour. With pair programming, two developers either of the same level or mixed to bring their knowledge and understanding of the functionality and the technology into a common medium, normally in the form of code. It does take time to become skilled at pair programming. The technique hinges on improving your communication skills; it is vital that you can articulate your ideas and also listen to your pair. Code quality is important but most developers who have not tried pair programming are concerned about how pair programming affects their creative process and how working with another programmer affects the pace of development. There's no denying it feels different. Your partner frequently challenges your proposed approach so you have to stay alert and completely engaged in the task at hand. It's hard work but nice to have someone to share your highs and lows with. Pairing inexperienced programmers with expert programmers may be frustrating because the expert will be forced to slow down to work at the pace of the novice. It is essential that the expert does take time to explain their thinking to their partner rather than dominating the keyboard or barking keyboard escape sequences for them to type. There are numerous computer magazines and computer articles that provide plenty of the latest information. Upgrading yourself with the best technology can be of a tremendous help when seeking more information about pair programming. Read more on : articles on computers , Digital Library , technology training