The dawn of average programming: Pair programming.

The constant evolution of software and technology is the main cause of many procedures, architectures and methodologies in software development, as of today, the options of methodologies a team of developers can use to approach a problem is insanely wide, this has become an advantage when trying to solve particular problems or design specific algorithms and has make teams more flexible when designing or making a solution.

Over all this options, there is one particular that has been proven to be really accurate and precise, is called ‘Pair programming’ or ‘Xtreme Programming’ which consist on a team of 2 people (pair) working together on the same code and at the same time, same algorithm and problem, making it a 2-mind 1-laptop approach, although this might appear to be inefficient and poorly designed, it turns out it has been widely tested and really successful.

The reasons behind the success of this approach is actually pretty simple, two minds think better than one alone, therefore the problem or algorithm can be solved in a more efficient way and even in less time, even though this methodology can be really successful, it is not still completely accepted by the average programmer, and one of the main reasons is that it has certain ‘rules’ which must be followed in order to make it approachable, and the first one is to leave behind the ‘lone wolf’ mentality that most of the programmers have nowadays, and of course, leaving the ego outside, meaning that in this methodology no one is more than anyone, any approach or option to solve a problem is valid, and should be considered, and should be shared, the ‘it was your fault’ excuse is no longer valid, and shall be replaced with ‘we screw it all’ or ‘we successfully implemented everything’, reinventing the conventions of the average programmer.