Intro to Pairing

By Andrew Edstrom and Nat Bennett

We love pair programming. Between the two of us, we've spent more than 15,000 hours pair programming. We’re more productive, learn more, and have more fun writing code together than alone. We think pairing has made us better engineers and better people, and we think more people should try it.

We also know it’s hard. We’ve had days where all we did was watch our pair type. We’ve had days when we couldn’t seem to get our pair engaged. And we’ve had days where we got home from a day of pairing too exhausted for the rest of our lives.

We're here to help you get more of the good parts of pairing, and less of the bad. Watch this video if you want to be less exhausted, do better work faster, and have more fun.

Our Public Work on Pair Programming

We've both written extensively about pair programming, and that content has been shared widely within the pair programming community and among the broader engineering community.

Andrew is known for nuts-and-bolts advice about how to pair programming well.

Nat is best known for a deep dive into "the mortifying ordeal of pairing all day." (And achieved the dubious honor of "#1 on Hacker News.")

Who this course is for

• You’ve just joined a company that practices pair programming, and want to get off to a strong start and avoid some common pitfalls
• You’re a manager at a company that practices pair programming, and you need an easy way to show new reports what’s expected from them in a pairing session
• You want to like pair programming, but you’ve struggled with how much energy it demands
• You want to like pair programming, but when you've tried it, you seem to spend most of your time watching your pair work

Contents

What is pair programming?

Why should you pair?

What should a good day of pairing feel like?

How to get a pairing session off to a good start

What does a bad day of pairing look like?

How to set up your computer and IDE for pairing success

How to care for yourself while pairing

How to care for your pair, without overextending yourself

How to stay present when you’re getting distracted

What to do when your pair is doing all the typing

What to do when your pair isn’t participating

Refund policy

If you're not 100% satisfied with the purchase, or it's not what you were expecting, just reply to the download email within 30 days, and you'll get a full refund. No questions asked.