Optimising pair programming in a scholastic framework: A design pattern perspective

Abstract

Pair programming is one of the widely used practices of Extreme Programming (XP). XP is a software development process which intends to enhance quality of software code in order to cater to the ever increasing demands of customers looking for IT solutions. Pair programming promotes team building, raises confidence among individuals and eventually results in richer and a better codebase. As an attempt to compare solo and pair programming, group of post graduate students were assigned the task to implement four out of 23 design patterns (pertaining to real world scenarios) in their lab sessions. In this study, a systematic investigation on pairing by contemplating a pair programming scenario from a design pattern perspective has been presented. Results were obtained using JavaNCSS tool by considering software code metrics which indicated that pair programming can be beneficial in a scholastic framework.