Pair Programming Grading Policy

• be resistant initially to pair-programming, and
• find it very beneficial and enjoyable once they get over their initial resistance.

A five percent bonus will be given on each assignment that is completed following the pair programming guidelines below. These bonuses can be used to make up for lost points on the current or any other programming assignment. In no case will the total class points for the programming assigments exceed 20% of the grade. That is, if you get 100% for each assignment then the bonuses will sadly not make any difference. However, if you get 95% or less on any one assignment, then following pair programming on one assignment will raise that to 100%.

Pair Progamming Guidelines

1. You and your partner should work together as much as possible, with the stipulation that at most 25% of your total time coding, testing, and debugging on the assignment can be working alone.
2. When the pair gets back together after either partner has worked on the code alone, review, line by line, the work done alone before doing any new work. Strictly speaking, pair programming when done as part of the "Extreme Programming" software development process, requires that any code written by a solo progammer must be discarded and rewritten.
3. You and your partner should alternate driving and navigating spending roughly equal amounts of time in each role.
4. You should change roles (driving/navigating) no less than every half-hour.
5. For it to be considered a joint effort, you can spend at most 15 minutes alone finishing up a program after your last meeting with your partner.

Failed Attempts at Pair-Programming

• You and your partner complete the program together but substantially deviate from one of the 5 guidelines above (e.g. too much time working alone).
• You begin working with your partner but then you cannot finish it together and you finish it on your own.
• You and your partner never manage to get together.
• You get together with your partner but it just isn't working for some reason (e.g. they always want to drive, they never want to drive, they clearly aren't studying and don't come prepared to your planned sessions).

What do I do if my partner doesn't show up to our scheduled meeting for working on a programming project?

Answer:

Case 1: Your partner has not yet done the assignment.

1. You can submit your own solution and your partner can work alone, completing their own solution (see Pair Split below).
2. You can scrap your solution and work with your partner on a pair solution. In this case your partner must drive and you must review until you have a program that is at least as good as the one you scrapped.
3. Your partner can work alone until they have a solution. At this point it becomes Case 2 below.

Case 2: Your partner also completed the assignment alone.

1. You can each submit your own solution (see Pair Split below).
2. You can scrap both solutions and redo a combined solution. This is referred to as "flushing" in the required reading, All I Really Need to Know about Pair Programming I Learned In Kindergarten
3. You can combine your solutions into a single solution. In this case the work incorporated into the final solution must be carefully reviewed by the partner that did not write it.

Consider the following scenario. Your partner fails to show for your first meeting. You spend 2 hours on the assignment but do not finish. The next day you meet with your partner who has not worked on the assignment at all. You review the work you already completed with your partner and then you work together and in less than an hour finish the assignment. Now what? You spent more than the allowed 25 percent of your time alone but you finished it together. At this point you have several options:

The best option is to simply throw away your old code and rewrite it from scratch with your partner. This will almost certainly result in a much better program. Programs are almost always better the second time. This is true in commerical software developement as well as in educational settings. You will also learn from the experience.

Another option is to spend additional time with your partner doing additional testing, cleaning up the documentation, adding new features, or rewriting sections of the code. You can continue doing this until you have reduced your time alone to 25 percent. This is not the best option for total effort. To comply with the guidelines, you will need to have spent 8 hours in total to balance your 2 hours alone in the example scenario.

A third option would be to simply turn in the program listing both partners as authors and report the actual time spent. This situation does not comply with the pair programming guidelines and would not receive the 5% bonus but could otherwise receive full credit.

A final option is not really an option but I feel compelled to mention it. You can lie by being dishonest about what you put in the log. Of course if this is discovered you will be disciplined appropriately.

Program Logs

Followed pair programming guidelines

Worked some with a partner but didn't follow the pair programming guidelines

Worked alone

Petitioning to keep the same partner.

• I'm a parent and have a particularly difficult schedule. My current partner has a compatible schedule and I would like to stay with that partner.
• My partner and I didn't quite finish the last assignment but we both feel we are very close and would like to finish it up together.
• My partner and I both finished up the current assignment early and have already made substantial progress on the next assignment and would like to finish it up together.

• My partner and I are boyfriend/girlfriend and we would like to keep working together.
• My partner and I are room mates and we would like to keep working together.

This page maintained by Charlie McDowell Email regarding this site.