Feedback
January the 25th in year 2015
A technic, very often practiced at Dev Bootcamp, is Pair Programming. This is, what its name suggests, a programming session done by two people. One takes the role of the driver, and the other takes the role of the navigator. Navigator overlooks the process, brings up the ideas and creates the structure of the project. Communication is very important for the person taking this role, because it is all passed to the driver, who needs to understand what navigator meant. Driver on the other hand, writes all the code, takes care about all the variable/method names, and makes the code look nice. Both roles are challenging and equally important.
I've been doing it a couple of times per week for five weeks now, and the experience has varied from great to just OK. Sometimes you really get along with someone, and some other time there is no spark and you realise, that once you're done with the session, you won't be feeling sad it's over. I guess this is with a lot of things that we try, some are simply better than others.
One thing I really appreciate when we do this sessions is anonymous feedback we post to one another. It's great to read what other people think of you. I was very pleasantly surprised by all the feedback I got. People find me a nice guy... Which is always good... But I'm missing the negative feedback. I think people should try harder to write something negative about their pair. Positive is great, it feels good, but the negative is the one on which a person can really improve. I understand that writing negativity to someone is hard, especially because you care about them, and you know they're going to read it. But we have to realise that we're not helping them, when we're not telling them the dark side. It sounds weird but:
I want negative feedback!
I hope I don't sound like I have no feelings. I do find it hard to write negative feedback myself. Actually, I find it to be the hardest part, but it's the most important as well. If I make a sports analogy.
The good feedback is the rewords you get, the respect and the money you earn, but it's the hard work that get you there. It's not pleasant, it’s tough, it hurts, but it brings results. This is what bad feedback is, and it's obviously crucial part of learning process. Just look at your life. When you were a kid, your parents told you "NO!" when you did something stupid. It didn't feel good, quite the opposite, but it's because of that, you can now function in society, and not act like a stupid kid that spills your drink in McDonald's, continues to run around, when parents keep chatting, eating their chips and pretend nothing happened.
I don't want to be a bad pair just to get some negativity, because I realise that nobody is perfect, and that there are always things that can be improved. I expect people I pair with will tell me that, and it doesn't matter if they find them minute. I don't!