CS 117 Winter 2006
Pair Programming

• For the programming assignments in CS117 this term, I'll be assigning you a partner with whom to work. Every once in a while, I'll reshuffle the partnerships, but we'll stick with the same pairings for a few assignments at a time. That way you'll have a chance to work with a few different people, but you'll also have a chance to get used to working with each of them.
• You and your partner should work using the pair programming model, where both of you are sitting at a single machine, side by side. (You may not split up the assignment and work on different parts separately! That defeats the whole purpose of having a partner.) One of you will be "driving," i.e., actually using the keyboard and mouse. The other one of you will be actively engaged (navigating, if you will): following along, providing ideas, catching and preventing bugs, etc. You should make sure that over the course of an assignment that you spend roughly the same amount of time each "driving."
• After you've handed in pair assignments, I will also ask you to turn in a peer-evaluation form regarding the work that you and your partner did.
• If you decide that you really want to work alone, that's okay. Send me an email and let me know that you want to work alone, and I won't assign you a partner the next time around. I will expect, however, that you do work of the same amount and quality as those students with partners. You can change whether or not you work alone each "cycle" that I assign new partners.
• Take a look at the article "All I Really Need to Know about Pair Programming I Learned in Kindergarten", which has a pretty good explanation of why we're doing this.