The document discusses collaborative programming, particularly pair programming, which involves two programmers working together to enhance design, coding, and testing productivity. It highlights the benefits of this approach over solo programming, such as improved knowledge sharing and reduced syntactical errors, while also addressing cultural challenges and when not to employ this method. Additionally, it covers the feasibility and tools for distributed pair programming as demonstrated by research from North Carolina State University.

1. Agile NCR 2009 July 18, 2009 Effective Agile Software Development with Collaborative Programming

2. Agenda What is Collaborative Programming? A day in solo programming A day in pair programming Economics of collaborative programming Cultural and psychological challenges How to do it? When not to do it? Distributed pair programming Need What it takes Tools Demo When to do it and when not Questions

3. Collaborative programming Involves two programmers side-by-side on the design, coding and testing of a piece of software. The concept of driver and navigator Constant active review, knowledge sharing and design discussions Pair programming transforms what has traditionally been a solitary activity into an interactive & cooperative effort.

4. A day of a solo programmer

5. Challenges of solo programming Focus Factor Syntactical errors causing at least 10% loss in productivity Passive reviews No knowledge sharing

6. A day in collaborative programming

7. A day in collaborative programming

8. A day in collaborative programming Minimal distractions as pairing requires respect for each other. Navigator catches the syntactical errors even before you compile the code. You find an ACTIVE reviewer. Knowledge sharing in its true form. Design quality

9. Economics of pair programming Why should I invest for two programmers for the same task??? For any two programmers, no matter how good he or she is, if we get them to sit together, the value of their work will be greater than if they sit apart.

10. Cultural and psychological challenges Some people prefer working alone Move from Waterfall to Agile world (no heroics anymore)‏ Egos and personality conflicts Intimidation by expert

11. How to do it? Agree on one tiny goal at a time Rely on your partner, support your partner. Talk a lot Switch roles often Write unit test first Pay attention – don’t check your email, digg etc The person who knows less about the system or language should do most of the driving, to ensure that the novice stays engaged. You learn more through your fingers than through your eyes. Ping-pong pairing

12. When not to do it? When reading about a library that might help later on Spiking a complex solution or debugging a tricky error with someone that has an experience gap. The number of tasks that require pairing is a lot higher than the number of tasks that don't.

13. Distributed pair programming

14. The Need Nothing is as effective as collocated team and pair programming. However when teams ARE distributed, we attempt to reach the same level of productivity as for collocated teams - Welcome to the world of Distributed Pair Programming. Trivia Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University conducted an experiment to compare the different working arrangements of student teams developing object-oriented software. The results of the experiment indicate that it is feasible to develop software using distributed pair programming, and that the resulting software is comparable to software developed in collocated teams. The University's technique is based on the emerging software engineering methodology – “pair-programming” combined with nearly 20 years of widespread and active research in collaborative software systems. Distributed pair programming

15. What it takes? Lots and lots and lots of communication. Hardware Challenges Software Challenges Network Challenges, pair switching Cultural Challenges Time Differences Distributed pair programming

16. Tools Microsoft Office Communicator (OCS)‏ Skype Mikogo Cola Eclipse plugin Adobe Acrobat Connect NetMeeting VNC XPairtise - A Distributed Pair Programming Plug-in For Eclipse Sangam – A Distributed Pair Programming Plug-in for Eclipse - Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University PCAnywhere SelfLanguage SqueakSmalltalk - has a shared desktop component named Nebraska RemoteAdmin from Famatech -- far faster than VNC and far cheaper than PCAnywhere SpeakFreely - win32/linux voice chat Messengers Baseline : Follow KISS principles - high quality cam, mic, headphones Distributed pair programming

17. Tools Experiments by some universities – ( Carolina State University, University of California et al )‏ Virtual WorkSpace was intended as an environment to enable distributed collaboration over a network. It depends heavily on computer-generated graphics and virtual reality devices as well. ClearBoard was similarly a non-co-located collaboration support system that allowed two users to appear to sit face to face, and see the shared work between them The members of a pair viewed a common PC display using desktop sharing software; They trailed Microsoft NetMeeting, Symantec’s PCAnywhere, and VNC. They used headsets and microphones to speak to each other, and text chat for communications as well. They used several instant messaging programs (Yahoo Messenger, PalTalk, AOL Messenger) before implementing the project. The final experiment was run with NetMeeting , as this program provided PC sharing, text, audio, and video in one platform. Distributed pair programming

18. Time for some action… COLA Eclipse Plugin Demo Distributed pair programming

19. Opportunities for Distributed Pair Programming New extension of team KT phases Domain expert on either side User story specific need Collective Code Ownership & knowledge sharing When can it be an overkill? Mixing Remote and local pairing, long tasks When collocated pairing can be done, avoid distributed pair programming. Distributed pair programming

20. Questions