At last, I know why I hate pair programming ...

If you're a programmer, I'm sure you've heard of XP (eXtreme Programming -- not the OS). I've always felt that certain aspects of XP were very useful (unit testing and iterative development, for example) but have been uncomfortable with it as a whole. The lack of any kind of upfront design always bothered me. I also always hated pair programming. At long last, I know why. I found an article on XP in the September, 2003 issue of Wired which finally clears it up for me:

Mostly, though, what changed Kevin Yu is pair programming. In a profession known for its lone wolves and silent cubes, in a culture routinely mocked for its social ineptitudes, putting coders up close to each other seems counterintuitive, even risky. Recent research into autism suggests that some software engineers may actually suffer from a genetic disorder that impedes their ability to interact.

What a relief to know that not subscribing to the practice of pair programming merely indicates a genetic defect! (BTW, I stumbled across this article referenced from an excellent article in the May 2004 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, titled "The Irony of Extreme Programming". (These authors also wrote a book which I think I may need to add to my collection called XP Refactored: The Case Against Extreme Programming. That explanation from the Wired article is just the type of thing that has always bothered me about the XP zealots. If you don't agree with every single practice, or think that the totality of the XP approach is appropriate for every situation, the problem isn't XP - it's you. You either don't care enough to do the "right thing", you are too stupid to understand it, or something else is wrong with you (perhaps a genetic defect?).

Well, enough of that little rant. One bad thing that turned into a good thing this week, our electric water heater stopped working. Donna woke me up one morning to let me know that she had just finished her shower and the water was just "warm". Of course, all that was left for me was ice cubes strained through the showerhead. I checked the circuit breaker, hopeful, but no luck. Then I turned to my usual friend in times of crisis -- Google. I learned that water heaters generally have a secondary cut off switch that you can reset. Well I searched high and low and couldn't find one, so I figured our water heater must be, as luck would have it, one that didn't not have such a switch. Since I hate the telephone (probably something to due with the genetic defect I mentioned above) I had Donna start calling plumbers. She called AAA Allied Plumbing and I ended up getting on the phone with the guy at the other end. He told me that it was most likely the cut off switch on the heater itself. I told him I couldn't find one. He described where it would be. Turned out that there was a metal panel that had to be removed, after taking some screws out, then behind some insulation -- TADA! -- there was the reset button. I pushed it and all was well. I'm so used to being screwed over by repair people of various types that it was very refreshing that he cheerfully told me what to do over the phone instead of taking advantage of my ignorance and being able to charge for a service call. But on the other hand it was probably shrewd -- next time I have need of a plumber you can bet they will be the first people I call. The downside to all of that is, according to what I read online, those little cutoff circuits don't just trip for no reason. It usually indicates a problem with the unit. And if you have to reset it once, you'll probably have to keep resetting it, and at some point repair or replace the unit. So far so good ... we'll see!

Well, the weekend's a wasting so I'm outta here. Off to see a movie and run some errands. Not sure what we're gonna watch yet but I'll be sure and post my review later. :)