Remote Pair Programming with Yuuguu
Author: Alan Mellor, almellorOne of the topics that frequently crops up on my TweetDeck is ‘can anyone recommend a good tool for Remote Pair Programming’. Turns out I can! There are no prizes for guessing which one (Yuuguu, just so you know). I decided to chat about our experiences in doing this for five minutes in this video.
The ways we use Yuuguu inside the company
I started work here as a software guy, working on our server implementation. There’s quite a lot going on there. It’s got bits of Java, SQL, various HTTP and XML bindings to it, all the usual buzz word stuff for a modern server development. Our website coding is PHP – again, talking to servers via XML, XMPP and HTTP. Plenty to code, plenty of diverse technologies.
One way we handle the diversity is to use Pair Programming – the technique first brought to light in ‘Agile Methods’. It’s where two programmers sit at the same keyboard and computer screen, and both work on a piece of code. Sounds wasteful – until you try it. The benefits are real. At the very least, one guy can be typing away at the low level stuff – making it work – whilst the other can think about high level issues. The benefits are more compelling still when you pair up people with radically different – but overlapping – skillsets.
We found it particularly useful during a recent major upgrade – rewriting our screen sharing software, to make it faster, and with better looking pictures. Pairing a low-level bit twiddling expert with someone with video codec expertise proved to be a significant help in getting the job done. You find that the real-time, fully-engaged nature of pairing means that problems get found and worked on much faster. Typically, with one programmer, once they are stuck, they can spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out solutions on their own. And their colleague might well be able to solve it in seconds, due to their different background.
Finally, a shout-out with thanks to @dorkitude for asking the question about how strict we are in our application of ‘pair programming’. Cheers!
Til next time,
Have a great week –
Al.
Add New Comment
Viewing 5 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment