Our last iteration introduced full time pair programming as an accepted practice (in contrast with our previous practice of “pairing”). The last couple of days I’ve been pair programming with one of client’s developers and because we seem to work well together, it hasn’t been hard to all building the synergy. As part of pair programming, I suggested we give pair pong programming a go and despite it being a new practice, we’ve found it excels at providing us with the rhythm that makes us amazingly productive.

I think there are a couple of reasons why pair pong programming works. Firstly, it’s got all the aspects of pair programming (such as constantly discussing design, questioning and trying to improve on the code that is written). As I mentioned earlier, it’s got the rhythm of proper TDD (writing a failing test, and then getting that test to pass) and finally it’s really good for actually forcing pairs to drive and navigate for an evenly distributed time. I think we’ve almost got to the point where when we write the test for each other, the other pair already understands what it would take to implement it and then the code just flows.

With the right partner, pair pong programming can be such bliss…