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Comment by enneff | Hacker News Reader

This whole article is predicated on the absurd straw man argument that there are legion pair programming evangelists ruining the software industry with their philosophy. In reality, even the people I know who practice pair programming only do so less than half the time. It's hardly an epidemic.

As an aside: I am pretty tired of people saying "I'm an introvert," when what they mean is "I'm an asshole." Even if you're introverted, you have the same responsibility as everyone else to communicate in order to get things done.

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> I am pretty tired of people saying "I'm an introvert," when what they mean is "I'm an asshole."

And I'm pretty tired of extroverts expecting everyone else to be like them and consider anyone "assholes" when they aren't.

That's not what's going on here. And I apologize for being pithy. My deeper point is that a few (ironically) vocal assholes make introverts look bad by using their supposed introversion as an excuse to be a dick.

This whole article is predicated on the absurd straw man argument that there are legion pair programming evangelists ruining the software industry with their philosophy.

Not really. This is a guy who hates pair programming and believes it would make him unhappy. Full stop. Don't mistake his screed about how he'd quit programming if pairing were required with a belief that this is where the industry is going. That's merely language to show how much he really really really hates pair programming.

I am pretty tired of people saying "I'm an introvert," when what they mean is "I'm an asshole."

I think that's a bit harsh. Note that the article starts off with a warning that it's a rant: the author is admitting up-front that he's letting off some steam. Social interaction is a limited commodity for introverts. The author would likely prefer to spend his daily allotment of social interaction on what he'd consider more useful forms of workplace communication.

> I think that's a bit harsh.

Well, somewhat. But I read other comments here and in at least three cases the posters were proudly describing themselves as assholes. The problem with all of them was that they never once realized that pairing may be done not for them, but for the other person (or them both). I thought it's common sense to consider all the people involved in the interaction. For those people it's not, it's only about how they feel and how they are influenced by pairing. I was very, very lucky (apparently) that I didn't meet any of them (or they didn't have the chance to manifest their attitude towards me - towards all of us) in my professional life.

This "fuck you all, whatever it may be I'm working" attitude may be tolerated in people who really contribute a lot. Their presence may be beneficial on the whole to the company or even to the team they're on. That doesn't mean they are not assholes - it just means that in our industry being a jerk is not disqualifying feature. I have no idea what they are so proud about, though.

> Even if you're introverted, you have the same responsibility as everyone else to communicate in order to get things done.

That goes both ways - if you're dealing with an introvert it might benefit you to communicate in a different style and with a different frequency. Some management books even provide models for quick and dirty social analysis so that people can do so. The model I've found most immediately applicable is:

            Extroverted

                 |

Person focused ----- Task focused

                 |

            Introverted

You can pick up on that sort of thing fairly easily, when people speak how loudly do they speak - do they project their voice? When they talk do they gesture a lot with their hands? When they talk is about things or people? Does their tone of voice alter when they talk about different areas - do the volunteer information as readily about those things, ask the same number of relevant questions?

I totally agree. You need to treat different people differently. However you shouldn't assume that just because you're an introvert or an extrovert that you should be exempt from having to invest your energy in interpersonal communication. It's what makes the world work.

I can say that that's actually somewhat of a real concern. There are companies that only program in pairs (pivotal for example) and others that try to emulate them. I have personally experienced pair programming being pushed as SOP.

Yet the vast majority of companies do not do pair programming as a matter of course. Just don't work for those companies if you don't like it.

I personally would like to try pair programming but none of the companies I have worked for would do it much. (Although the most productive time I had at my last job was a single pair programming session.)

"Asshole" is easily defined by someone who puts their interests in front of everything else. Both introverts and extroverts can be assholes .... or not.

I totally agree. That's my point, really.

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