Pair it is the law!

There are some obvious benefits to pairing: Shared knowledge, keeping on task, holding each other accountable, reduced bad design/code. It is all about quality. When we make a mistake we live with it forever.

My wife works in heath care. She treats patients who have prostate cancer, with some sort of hugely expensive equipment that produces radiation. So when it comes time for a patient to receive treatment, how many people are involved in the treatment? Two, that is right two.

I have been so busy thinking about how as software developers we are changing the way we do our work. I didn't even notice that my wife pairs every day of the week. In fact she has regulations against treating a patient by herself. The medical community doesn't want people to make mistakes.

Why do we as programmers need to re-educate developers to not code alone? There are all sorts of regulations around treating patients with medical equipment. Shouldn't we consider our work just a critical? I say get that Bill to congress!