My experience with pair programming has been mostly positive. I’ve taken both roles, but more often as the navigator.
Incentives in school are different than at a real company: Individual grades vs the success of the company that’s paying your salary; getting along with people you may never see again after this semester vs approval of peers you may be working with for years. Also, the kind of people in a coding bootcamp are not necessarily the kind of people who would actually get hired to do programming.
Junior/senior pairings seem to work best when the senior is navigating and the junior is driving. Yes, it helps if the senior is patient and the junior is willing, but the junior is not particularly skilled at programming generally.
My experience with pair programming has been mostly positive. I’ve taken both roles, but more often as the navigator.
Incentives in school are different than at a real company: Individual grades vs the success of the company that’s paying your salary; getting along with people you may never see again after this semester vs approval of peers you may be working with for years. Also, the kind of people in a coding bootcamp are not necessarily the kind of people who would actually get hired to do programming.
Junior/senior pairings seem to work best when the senior is navigating and the junior is driving. Yes, it helps if the senior is patient and the junior is willing, but the junior is not particularly skilled at programming generally.