I Hate Pair Programming

Whew. It’s out there. I feel lighter now. Good.

I love my workflow, my timing, my weird little rituals. And there are amazing engineers who love pair programming. I remember a boss I had a long while ago who loved it and was genuinely good at it. Every session felt like a lesson.

I hated every second.

But guess what? Now I pair program daily with my agent.

It is a wildly unbalanced session. They type a lot. I assume they know things. They research a lot, and I wait a lot. We have deep technical conversations and sometimes land on great stuff. Sometimes we disagree and have heated discussions. They do not learn very well, and I swear many times.

Still, they are nice coworkers.

We have been achieving plenty.

You should treat agents as teammates. Work together. Have a nice time. Discuss. Push back. Let them surprise you.

But be a friend, and do not let them do all of your work.