"Dean S Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron Trevena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
> >I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it
> right
> >tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split
> up to
> >do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly
> >being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very
> tolerant
> >indeed.
>
>
> How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by
> trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of
> a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read
> that much on XP)
The Dictum in the XP literature appears to be 'nobody is allowed to
say "No"', pairs form and re form on task by task basis. 'Regular'
pairs are to be discouraged. XP Installed has a bunch of stuff on
this.
> Has anyone who's used XP had a client that was willing to make an
> employee available pretty much full time or was it more they come in
> for a chunk of the afternoon three times a week? I have an issue with
> the fact that clients will be willing to pay a member of staff to
> spend all day in the consultants office in case they need to be asked
> questions.
The XP argument goes something like:
This team costs you £X000/day. Your liason costs you £X00/day. We
believe that having someone available to us, on site, full time (but
able to do however much of their work that can be done remotely), will
dramatically reduce the amount of our time it takes to deliver a
product, and will also increase the final value of that product. Do
the maths. (Well, maybe not quite so bluntly, but you take my point)
> I'm not saying its a bad thing to have someone on hand, I can see
> its uses but from the clients point of view why not just have
> contact by phone/email. That was the liaison has access to everyone
> in his base office so he can resolve issues faster with more
> authority than if he were in your offices. Also you have a paper
> trail of requests, questions and responses.
There's a whole chapter on this in XP Installed. Paraphrasing,
"Customer onsite == answer in 30 seconds.
Customer offsite == answer today."
They also point out that you can make either version work, but the
onsite customer option works best.
--
Piers
