Some tech companies question whether programmers need independent work space

Absrtact: Firm supporter of pair programming Facebook programmer Kent-Baker (Tencent technology map) Virginia Woolf, a famous British authoress, believes that a woman writer should have a room of her own, Woolf. And in Silicon Valley, some technology

Strong supporter of pair programming Facebook programmer Kent-Baker (Tencent technology map)

Virginia Woolf, a famous British authoress, Woolf that a woman writer should have a room of her own. In Silicon Valley, some tech companies question whether programmers need their own independent work space.

These companies are implementing "pair programming" (pair programming), which means two people share a desk and a computer. One of them is "pilot", which controls the keyboard and input programming code, while the other is a "navigator" responsible for monitoring design and scanning vulnerabilities.

Pairing programming has advantages

Technology companies, including Facebook and the mobile-payment start-up square, like this "pairing programming" model because it can give full play to the advantages of pairing, such as the fact that the pair programmers can find software vulnerabilities that can cause huge losses, and that there is less time spent surfing the web.

"There is a lot of communication between programmers, and you can even talk without words," says Kent Beck, a Facebook programmer Kent Beck. You just need to simply describe and then combine the gestures. Baker is a staunch supporter of pairing programming.

However, this is only a theoretical possibility, how the actual effect needs to be tested. Will Sackint, a former programmer at Grockit, an online-learning start-up based in San Francisco, never reached a level of tacit understanding with the programmer. Sargent said he worked with a programmer who was very good at software design, but when he "drove" the error, his partner would take over his task and fix the errors.

Sargent said: "I have never reached his level." "Sargent left the company in 2010.

Roy Gilbert, Grockit's chief executive, said the model had proved very successful and his programmers were "continuing to promote it." ”

Adapt to each other's problems

If heterosexual partners are the best combination of this pair of working patterns, the reality is more like a never-ending mess of dating farce. Because of the things that make knots so annoying to programmers: bad personal hygiene and dining etiquette, putting your feet on your desk at work and annoying noises when chewing.

Atlassian, a software company based in Sydney, Australia, made a mock-teaching video clip called "Spoon Sitting" this April Fool's Day to make a mockery of the work of pairing programming.

The film was two minutes long, with more than 100,000 visitors. In this film, a burly programmer sits on the lap of another programmer and hands around the waist of the latter, with two people completing the input. "They should be exchanging positions," the narrator said. No one wants to be seated on the lap all the time. ”

Pairing programming is starting to go back to Kent Beck's "Extreme programming Explained", written in 1999. According to the book, companies should release software very quickly, and the software itself should be continuously perfected in the process of distribution, while pair-pair programming can achieve this more quickly.

In the 80 's, Baker had worked with a software company, Cunningham, the world's first developer of wiki systems, and Baker had a lot of ideas about "pairing programming" during this period. In the process of Cunningham's request to Baker to examine a software application loophole, the relationship between the two sides gradually formed. Eventually, the partnership grew more deeply, with two of people starting to deal with the task since it would save time to complete other projects of interest.

"The first thing I did when I came to the office in the morning was to find baker," says Mr Cunningham. And when we get off work, we'll go out of the office building and drive home. ”

After Baker left the company, the two-person pair programming cooperation only ended.

"When our cooperation ends, I think," Baker says. ' Who else will notice when I feel tired or in the future? ' I need someone to help me out. ”

Good development trend

Software development company Pivotal Labs programming programmer Cameron-Kandif and Sabrina-Stadler (Tencent technology map)

Now, the pair programming pattern is developing very well. Pivotal Labs, a software development company, lets its 175 programmers program every day in pairs. Some programmers also have multiple pair programming partners who change partners every day to implement unordered pair programming (promiscuous pairing).

Long-distance pair programming also requires programmers to operate on the same screen over the Internet. The San Francisco Square allows programmers to choose the time and way they think fit to do pairing programming. Square says that the company has about 15% full time programming engineers, and about half of the engineers occasionally engage in pair programming.

Zache Block Zach Brock, the Square's engineering manager, said: "After a fresh effort, there is also a problem between pairing programmers." ”

Jamie Kite, a software consulting agency based in North Carolina State Durham (Durham) Relevance Inc., Jemi Kate a Joen Diested with its pair of programming partners Distad (Jon Reasearchers) after a recent encounter with pairing.

"It seems that we are working in the opposite direction," Kate said at the time. I'm pushing my way forward, and you're dragging behind. What the hell is going on here?

Two of people together on the whiteboard to write their own solution to the problem. Diested said they had finally reached a compromise.

"This, like any other relationship, is hard to work with if you don't talk about solving problems," Kate said. ”

Have a feeling of boredom

If this communication does not solve the problem, relevance programming programmers can also turn to the company's staff trainer. "As with many old wives, engineers who have been engaged in pair programming for a long time will also be bored," says Marc Phillips, a coach Phillips. ”

For many programmers, programming is definitely a challenging task. Bryan Kocol, chief technology officer at Drive Current, San Diego software consultancy, said one of the company's engineers liked to speak loudly in the coding process. Cocourt points out: "Some people have the strange habit of talking to themselves, and such behavior makes others feel very painful." ”

Jon St. John, a software programmer at Drive Current, said that when he was programming with a more experienced programmer, he sometimes felt that the other person was very opinionated, or that the other person did not give him a chance to complete his ideas. He points out that more and more primary pair programmers may face the same problem.

Cocourt asked the company's engineers to do at least three hours of pairing programming a day, but after two years of implementation, he has gradually abandoned the practice.