The seven habits of effective pair-destroyers
This is from an amusing page on the c2 wiki.
The seven habits of effective pair-destroyers:
- Interrupt every time your partner starts doing something in a way other than how you’d do it.
- Insist on doing everything optimally the first time (even optimal keystrokes in the editor). Refactoring is not an option. Nothing fouls the current task better than PrematureOptimization and PrematureGeneralization.
- Don’t allow any idea you didn’t think of to be tried, no matter how small. Insist on being given a complete and conclusive argument that the idea will work and meets every standard of good code as practiced by the GreatOnes? before you yield even one keystroke. Refer to authoritative books to win such arguments.
- Cheat on ExtremeProgramming. Refuse to test first, do one task at a time, do what the customer asked, or any of the other practices that make pairing work. When reminded of the practices, argue and/or accuse.
- Once you wrestle the keyboard away, delete your partner’s last edit immediately. Then do what you were thinking of instead.
- Pair on stuff that is ambiguous so that you can diverge in intent and context every step of the way. (AmbiguityRequiresSpikes.)
- Never miss an opportunity to lecture your partner about good [OO-design|database-normalization|refactorings|math|linguistic-legalism]. Keep arguing and lecturing even after your partner agrees with you. Establish dominance.
An interesting list of bullet points – However, I would have used numbered points to emphasise…
Just kidding!
Thanks for the useful tips
Brendon
September 14, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I enjoyed reading this post
Brendon
September 14, 2005 at 12:35 pm
> I would have used numbered points to emphasise…
We know you’re not kidding Bren ;)
Glad you liked it. Almost everyone I know, who has read this, relates to one of the points. I suppose this is what makes it more interesting/amusing. The rest of the page at c2.com is also worth a read.
Abhijit
September 18, 2005 at 1:02 pm