Pair Programming: "What are you trying to learn?"
I’ve noticed recently that while pairing with various different people that I frequently ask my pair what they’re trying to learn through the approach that they’re about to take.
I tend to use it when I don’t really understand what my pair is doing and want to find out so that I can stay engaged.
It seems to be a more effective and less confrontational way of finding out than saying "What are you doing?" or "I don’t understand what you’re doing".
There tend to be two outcomes from asking the question:
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We were about to go on a yak shaving mission and that’s not been averted.
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My pair was ahead of me, knew something that I didn’t and is now able to teach me that.
The following are some recent examples I can remember asking the question:
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My pair was googling how to do something which didn’t seem directly related to what we were doing.
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My pair was scrolling around files fairly rapidly and I wasn’t able to follow what they were doing
Of course this question is unnecessary if the driver is providing constant commentary about what they’re doing but it’s easy to forget that you have someone alongside you when you’re solving a problem.
Asking this question seems to be a reasonably effective way of keeping the pairing collaborative.
About the author
I'm currently working on short form content at ClickHouse. I publish short 5 minute videos showing how to solve data problems on YouTube @LearnDataWithMark. I previously worked on graph analytics at Neo4j, where I also co-authored the O'Reilly Graph Algorithms Book with Amy Hodler.