Hacker News Reader

+1 to the comment here.

I see lots of discussions after code has been cut ('why this design?', 'why this library?', 'did you consider this?'), which would have been much more valuable to have as the code is being written.

With mobbing I'm thinking you can answer these questions and discuss opinions at the most appropriate time in the software creation lifecycle...

View on HN

I found it incredibly stressful to try to answer those questions before I finished. Pair programming meant I could never try anything new, because I couldn't answer those questions immediately.

Huh. That hasn't been my experience. Often I've had a pair say, "Can we try something?" And I'm happy to say yes. I learned a ton that way.

I'll add that when I'm just messing around with something, that's often solo coding time. E.g., trying out a new library just for the fun of it, or playing around with approaches to a problem. But for me that's throwaway code, so I don't need the quality boost or the shared understanding that comes from pairing

Reply on news.ycombinator.com