Abstract
This paper reports on an empirical study about the mechanisms of the collaboration of drivers and navigators in Pair Programming (PP) sessions. Based on video recordings of professional software developers, we analysed the mechanisms of role switches and how developers split the task of driving. We found that developers do not evenly contribute to the task of driving and that they spend on average a third of the session without any computer interaction focusing mainly on communication. In addition, our results show that most pairs switch roles frequently and that the frequency and fluidity of switches indicate a high level of engagement on the part of both developers.
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Plonka, L., Segal, J., Sharp, H., van der Linden, J. (2011). Collaboration in Pair Programming: Driving and Switching. In: Sillitti, A., Hazzan, O., Bache, E., Albaladejo, X. (eds) Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming. XP 2011. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 77. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20677-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20677-1_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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