Pair versus solo programming: an experience report from a course on design of experiments in software engineering

This paper presents an experience report about an experiment that evaluates duration and effort of pair and solo programming. The experiment was performed as part of a course on Design of Experiments (DOE) in Software Engineering (SE) at Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY). A total of 21 junior...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: RAUL ANTONIO AGUILAR VERA, OMAR SALVADOR GOMEZ GOMEZ, JOSE LUIS BATUN CUTZ
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:México
Institution:Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
Repository:Repositorio Digital Institucional de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:redi.uady.mx:123456789/415
Online Access:http://redi.uady.mx:8080/handle/123456789/415
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:info:eu-repo/classification/cti/7
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/33
Software engineering
Pair programming
Design of experiments
Latin square design
Experimentation
Experience report
Description
Summary:This paper presents an experience report about an experiment that evaluates duration and effort of pair and solo programming. The experiment was performed as part of a course on Design of Experiments (DOE) in Software Engineering (SE) at Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY). A total of 21 junior student subjects enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in SE participated in the experiment. During the experiment, subjects (7 pairs and 7 solos) wrote two small programs in two sessions. Results show a significant difference (at !=0.1) in favor of pair programming regarding duration (28% decrease), and a significant difference (at !=0.1) in favor of solo programming with respect to effort (30% decrease). With only a difference of 1%, our results regarding duration and effort are practically the same as those reported by Nosek in 1998.