I'll confess my bias up front: pairing has never worked for me, and I really just can't write serious code unless I'm in my own head.
Having said that, let me now ask pairing proponents: can you give me a rough idea of what you believe the economics to be? Because from my perspective the two people working together on the same program need to deliver value twice as quickly as a solo programmer merely to break even. Based on what I've seen my median estimate for how much quicker things go is ballpark 1.25x, and then throw in some amortized benefit for knowledge transfer and camaraderie. But in my biased opinion find it a stretch that you even hit break-even with high probability.
So, I would love to hear from pairing proponents how they think about the development economics and the size of the win.
Having said that, let me now ask pairing proponents: can you give me a rough idea of what you believe the economics to be? Because from my perspective the two people working together on the same program need to deliver value twice as quickly as a solo programmer merely to break even. Based on what I've seen my median estimate for how much quicker things go is ballpark 1.25x, and then throw in some amortized benefit for knowledge transfer and camaraderie. But in my biased opinion find it a stretch that you even hit break-even with high probability.
So, I would love to hear from pairing proponents how they think about the development economics and the size of the win.