Remote Pairing

Examining the Evidence

In the mid 1990s, a number of software-engineering experts began to observe the growing trend of pairing in development teams. They reported that programmers were producing code faster and freer of bugs than ever before.^[15]

Around the same time, a group of Smalltalk programmers and software-engineering consultants began to incorporate this practice into a methodology they called extreme programming (XP).

As XP gained traction in the industry, software-engineering researchers began publishing the results of controlled experiments that compared the work products of paired and individual programmers. A 1998 study from Temple University found paired teams completed their tasks 40% faster than individuals doing the same ...