---
title: "Pair Programming analysis - illuminating!"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/22/pair-programming-analysis-illuminating.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/22/pair-programming-analysis-illuminating.html"
published: "2004-02-22T20:11:00"
updated: "2004-02-22T20:11:00"
tags: [".Net Quotations", "Agile Related"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "This is a must read if you have ever heard about pair programming and thought “never gonna work“. Be sure to download the PDF as well as it contains very good pictures that show how the developer space is laid out.…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Pair Programming analysis - illuminating!

By Roy Osherove February 22, 2004 In [.Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations), [Agile Related](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile-related)

**Historical article** · Originally published February 22, 2004; technical details may be outdated.

[This is a must read](http://www.menloinstitute.com/freestuff/whitepapers/pairedprogramming_qanda.htm) if you have ever heard about pair programming and thought “never gonna work“.

Be sure to download the PDF as well as it contains very good pictures that show how the developer space is laid out. (don't mind the wall colors though. It's all about allowing people to sit together on the same machine. It could easily have been a big enough workspace in a good office)

Yes, it's revolutionary, but it's been here for a while. Yes, it's weird, but it works. I was in Norway when I first paired up some devs and have seen the amazing productivity boosting it generates, not to mention less bugs and more communication.

(link via [Steven Smith](http://blogs.aspadvice.com/ssmith/archive/2004/02/22/598.aspx))

## More in .Net Quotations

[All posts in .Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

- Feb 24, 2004

    ### [Getting a little closer to SOA](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/24/getting-a-little-closer-to-soa.html)

- Feb 24, 2004

    ### [\[Book\] Extreme programming adventures in C#](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/24/book-extreme-programming-adventures-in-c.html)

- Feb 22, 2004

    ### [\[Cool Tool\] CodeSmith 2.5](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/22/cool-tool-codesmith-25.html)

- Feb 21, 2004

    ### [More Lookup table techniques](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/2/21/more-lookup-table-techniques.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/