Joe began writing software in the late ’90s at a large insurance company. He soon moved to Evant, a start-up which became an early case study for eXtreme Programming and Agile software development processes. After spending several years as a consultant, Joe joined Pivotal Labs in 2005 as a founding members of Pivotal’s Ruby on Rails practice. Joe has led projects for a wide variety of clients, from one-person start-ups to the world’s largest social networks and search companies. Since moving to Atlanta in 2010 Joe has pair programmed remotely full time with Pivotal Labs coworkers and clients around the country. He also blogs about his his passion, remote pair programming, at http://remotepairprogramming.com.
It’s true! I’ve pair programmed eight hours per day, five days per week, about 50 weeks per year for the last 13 1/2 years. For the past three and a half years I’ve even remote pair programmed from my home office full time.
I’ve given presentations at many conferences, meetups, and companies on topics ranging from Agile team management to Android messaging frameworks. Once I inevitably mention that I pair program full time and the presentation grinds to a screeching halt as I’m peppered with questions about pair programming, regardless of my actual presentation topic.
Fine! Let’s do this thing. What is pair programming? Why doesn’t pair programming make software cost twice as much or take twice as long to develop? Do I pair with the same person every day? Who owns the code? How do performance reviews work? What do I do if my pair is sick? What do I do if I hate my pair? What if my pair is as dumb as a rock?
What if my pair smells bad? What if my pair smells GOOD?!
I’ll answer any and all questions about pair programming and remote pair programming, from the poignant to the silly. I have no doubt that we can fill the allotted time with sage advice, educational anecdotes, and your own stories about pair programming.
Ask me anything!
