I have to admit I don't love pairing at all as a way of working, but I have to grudgingly admit it has a lot of value -- when pairing a senior and junior, it's the most effective way of knowledge transfer and skill building in the junior.
I don't understand why you'd do pair programming with two new hires!
> I don't understand why you'd do pair programming with two new hires!
I don't know or think if it's the most effective way but it sure did help me build confidence approaching a large and old codebase with another new hire. I saw I wasn't the only one struggling and we were helping each other out. Maybe I just clicked with the fella, because we ended up having a great work relationship building awesome shit and friendship too. I dunno, maybe it was effective after all.
Really it seems like the best way to do pairing is to switch up who's pairing with who often, not stick people together permanently. Because there are different advantages to different pairings. And an advantage to the act of switching it up itself, of developing common shared knowledge across the whole field.
> I don't understand why you'd do pair programming with two new hires!
There's nothing wrong with two new hires pairing. A few things a pair could be doing while the other is writing code:
1. Spike out a refactor of the current viewable block of code that the other pair just wrote or is currently writing. Looking at it as a spike instead of a hard refactor allows a pair partner to experiment and if the spike doesn't result in something better, throw it away; no harm done.
2. Jump ahead and spike out a function that the pair might need soon, but isn't ready to consume yet.
3. Watch for pair getting stuck and help them think. Ask questions like ... are you stuck or just taking a mental break? That's a helpful question because it makes them more comfortable taking mental breaks when they need one without fear that you're judging them.
Keep in mind, pairing is AMAZING when deployed with empathy and less judgement. For those that feel like they are being judged when pairing is likely because you are a bit judgmental when the shoe is on the other foot.
FYI, teams that pair daily, get more done and team members feel less lonely and more like a real team. Go Warriors.
I don't understand why you'd do pair programming with two new hires!