
Ask HN: What are your experiences with Mob programming vs Pair programming - ajallow
I am familiar with the concept of Mop programming but, I have not worked with it. How effective is a mob of 4 compared to 2 pair programming groups?
======
baccheion
I work best when programming by myself. Occasionally, it's good to get someone
else to look over my work, but pair programming generally doesn't work for me.

If I have an unusually high bug count (or a bug count at all, really), then
it's due to lack of quiet and enough time alone to think.

~~~
Deccrypt
Agreed with this -- having one-offs is fine, but I definitely feel boggled
down when having to develop code entirely in a group for extended times.

------
angersock
Hasn't it been common knowledge for like 4 decades that throwing more bodies
at the same problem is grossly inefficient?

I can't imagine that 4 folks sharing 1 keyboard would result in as much or
even as good code as 4 people in 2 groups with 1 keyboard each?

------
mohaine
Not. Good for knowledge transfer but not much else. The people who don't what
to work will just hide in back and the ones that normally do the work will
spend lots of time explaining it to the people hiding.

------
aarohmankad
I've found that the extra two people are better utilized working on a other
aspect of the project :)

~~~
ajallow
I agree with that point! I think having 4 persons on a single computer leads
to great inefficiency and a means of dragging projects behind. However, the
adopters of mop programming claim to have eliminated the need for having code
reviews as a separate process on the development lifecycle.

------
wyager
4 people are less effective than 2 people are less effective than 1 person.

The diminishing return curves for throwing more programmers at a single
keyboard are _really_ bad.

~~~
ajallow
That's a point I can agree with. I would prefer to have 2 pair programming
groups working on 2 separate computers than a single group of 4 working on a
single computer.

------
CmdrSprinkles
Keep in mind that the target demographic of this site are college students and
people who are goofing off when they should be working (or are talking on a
message board when they are done for the day)

In my experience: Solo is best when you are doing grunt work. If I can
autopilot, then sure.

Pair is great for when you are starting out and implementing a complex feature
or tool. We generally don't do a lot of actual coding (just structures and
pseudocode), but will do a LOT of whiteboard drawing and talking through
logic. Multiple brains are what you want at this stage, and if you have a co-
worker who complements your thoughts well, you can do a lot of great work.

And for bug fixing, pair programming is hands down amazing.

Mob programming I personally dislike, but it has its uses. I would argue this
also belongs more at the high level planning stage, but it can work well when
you are adding a new feature where you would benefit from a few different
disciplines.

------
heisenbit
If you have a Mob i.e. a group of uneducated and disorganized people then it
can really help to put someone in the front to lead them. In all other
situations pair programming is more effective.

