Random Question: is it weird I don't like pair programming?

https://lemmy.world/post/462122

Random Question: is it weird I don't like pair programming? - Lemmy.world

I’ve been working in programming for a few years and I think I really dislike Pair Programming; I understand how it is but I often find it mind-numbingly dull. I have a feeling I’m doing it wrong but I feel like as a part of a dev team tasks should be broken into discrete enough chunks that a single person can just blitz through the work… Maybe it’s just me, what are y’all thoughts on the matter?

I hate it. I really enjoy programming, and don't enjoy social niceties. And I definitely don't enjoy someone looking over my shoulder all the time.

So that leads to 2 situations: I'm programming, but someone is looking over my shoulder and stopping me constantly (or doing nothing), or I'm watching someone else program and constantly frustrated that it's not me.

Even during an emergency I'm often better off just doing my thing solo, and the other person using their own methods to investigate and fix the problem. Chat is still available to share information and progress without it being a constant annoyance.

The only thing I think it's really good for is learning to program, and unless the people are the same level, it's probably only good for 1 of them.

Yeah I've definitely had situations where its been useful, lime double checking safety critical algorithms or making sure I haven't missed anything obvious. But a lot of the time in my current team it just ends up feeling redundant, especially since it's a small dev team.