---
title: "Benefits of TDD and Pair Programming (Course Day #1)"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2009/8/24/benefits-of-tdd-and-pair-programming-course-day-1.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2009/8/24/benefits-of-tdd-and-pair-programming-course-day-1.html"
published: "2009-08-24T07:50:57"
updated: "2009-08-24T07:50:57"
tags: ["Agile"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "We just finished day 1 of TDD master class in Norway. Here’s what people had to say about TDD and Pair Programming which they did half of the day: When doing TDD it is: Easier to isolate a problem Probably less bugs…"
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/"
---

# Benefits of TDD and Pair Programming (Course Day \#1)

By Roy Osherove August 24, 2009 In [Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile)

**Historical article** · Originally published August 24, 2009; technical details may be outdated.

We just finished day 1 of TDD master class in Norway. Here’s what people had to say about TDD and Pair Programming which they did half of the day:

**When doing TDD it is:**

- Easier to isolate a problem
- Probably less bugs
- Better API design
- More thinking about what you are writing
- More tests
- Cleaner tests
- Less debugger
- More confidence in the code
- Api documentation (up to date)
- Able to ”move on” to other tasks once finished
- More focus
- Code coverage (everyone has 94-100%)
- Quick feedback when you fail or break
- Didn't write extra unneeded code
- Think about requirements of API
- Easy refactoring

**When working in pairs:**

- better Interacting (sparing)
- You learn something from the other person
- Good for teaching and mentoring
- Instant code review
- Very productive and focused
- No time wasted
- Mostly fun
- Shared code ownership (bus factor)

## More in Agile

[All posts in Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile)

- Aug 25, 2009

    ### [TDD Course Day 2 – “What I Learned Today”](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/8/25/tdd-course-day-2-what-i-learned-today.html)

- Aug 24, 2009

    ### [One Free Ticket to my UK TDD Master class](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/8/24/one-free-ticket-to-my-uk-tdd-master-class.html)

- Aug 11, 2009

    ### [Uncle bob and the Art of Unit Testing](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/8/11/uncle-bob-and-the-art-of-unit-testing.html)

- Jul 28, 2009

    ### [Webinar: Driving unit testing in the organization](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/7/28/webinar-driving-unit-testing-in-the-organization.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

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### 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/