Just to add a quick preface to Roy’s post on Engineering Notebook: An Extreme Programming Episode, for those who might wonder what extreme programming (XP) actually?is, a good starting point is ExtremeProgramming.org?and XProgramming.com. In brief, the XP methodology mainly emphasizes on customer-driven development and?team work.
Pair programming, which is an element of extreme programming, is basically working as a pair – a two (wo)man team – two programmers working side-by-side, collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code or test. One programmer, the driver, has control of the keyboard/mouse and actively implements the program. The other programmer, the observer, continuously observes the work of the driver to identify tactical (syntactic, spelling, etc.) defects and also thinks strategically about the direction of the work. Checkout PairProgramming.com for more on?this methodology.
XP is practiced by many teams and companies around the world. However, it does have some?critics.