Hi all, On 2 Apr 2006, at 01:04, Jeffrey Thalhammer wrote:
I have never actually had an opportunity to practice this, but I've always felt that the most obvious way to combine test-driven development with pair programming was to have one person write test code while the other person writes application code. Presumably they might change roles periodically, but I'm not sure if they would actually work at the same terimnal. However, I've never heard anyone excplicitly advocate for this approach. Is this actually happening and I'm just not aware of it? Or is there some obstacle to this approach that I haven't considered?
Very belated response. Using Easter as an opportunity to catch up on my huge e-mail mountain :-)
Just to throw a contrary opinion into the mix I've found this to be a very effective technique. So have other people. Google around for "ping pong development". See <http://www.redsquirrel.com/blog/ archives/00000170.html> for example. Making the test pass/fail to be a competition between the pair and changing the driver regularly seem to be the points that can make it work well.
Absolutely do it at the same terminal though if at all possible. Remote pairing is nowhere near as effective as co-located pairing.
Cheers, Adrian
