Re: [xmlWiki-developers] meeting minutes from 3 Dec - project deliverables

[Arnaldo C. <ar...@mi...>]

Chris,
    This is a really terrific analysis.  I've had some of the exact same
problems.  I think that this is precisely the kind of stuff that Johnson
will be interested to see.
--Arnaldo
----- Original Message -----
From: "HEISTAD,CHRIS (A-USA,ex2)" <chr...@ag...>
To: <xml...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 12:25 PM
Subject: RE: [xmlWiki-developers] meeting minutes from 3 Dec - project
deliverables


> Of possible use in the summary:
>
> Please note I was really trying hard to find negative things. I had a
really
> good
> experience with Hugo and everybody else I worked with.
>
> Things that made distributed xp hard for me.
>
> I can't gauge my pair. Normally I'd be in the office and talk with
someone.
> Take them
> out for coffee and learn about their experience. Doing this over the phone
> won't work.
> I don't know the strengths and weaknesses of my teammates and my pair.
>
> It is hard to explain why you're frustrated over the phone. You can't
gauge
> how your
> pair is going to react. Or if they are annoyed or not.
>
> The whole process kind of goes to hell when you get interrupted. I.e.
> bathroom.
> Laying down a phone just feels different than taking a walk in an office.
> You feel
> guilty, like someone is constantly waiting for you. And even if you have a
> cordless, taking
> it into the bathroom definently violates some protocol.
>
> Plus your wife(spouse) thinks you're not really
> doing anything 'up there by yourself' and tends to interrupt. This
wouldn't
> happen if my
> wife(spouse) knew someone else was physically in the house. Or out in
public
> people would
> tend not to interrupt when two people are sitting together and obviously
> working. But here
> you're by yourself and nobody can really see that you are working with
> someone else.
>
> The whole desktop sharing thing really bothered me. We constantly
interupted
> each other.
> It would have been much simpler to hand the keyboard back and forth. Then
> you would
> know exactly who was driving. It can be very frustrating trying to move
the
> pointer
> while someone else is trying to do the same. Even when you have a lock,
its
> a pain to
> constantly relase the lock. In person you can see the hands before the
keys
> are hit. You
> don't have this with a screen sharing program.
>
> It is really hard to learn something while in the distributed xp process.
I
> either found myself
> wondering why my partner was doing something. And asking made me feel like
I
> was inhibiting
> progress, again the impersonal phone. Or else I was driving with the pair
> telling me
> what to do. This isn't good either because I can't concentrate on what
> exactly why the
> pair is telling me to do something.
>
> It is a real pain to set up a call. In an office you can look over and see
> that someone is
> not busy. But with the phone, you call and maybe your pair is working on
> something and can't
> work immediately. Then you're supposed to call back. But you still don't
> know if they're
> ready. Definently the protocol should be that the busy pair has to call
> back.
>
> Everything seems more blunt when working through the phone. Just like
people
> are more terse in
> email, they seem more terse while working on the phone, but not as bad as
> email. Seems like the bluntness goes:
>
> in person (least blunt)
> phone
> email
> text chat
>
> Text chat does not really work for technical discussion. Technical
> discussion needs elaboration not tersness. Nobody wants to type alot. And
> the abbreviations are annoying. You never are sure what they mean.
>
> Its an effort to discuss ideas with teammates who are nonpairs. You have
to
> arrange it.
> You just can't see they are not busy and walk up and start talking. It is
> more of an
> effort to communicate with team members in distributed xp.
>
> It seems that there is the drive to make oneself available too much.
Because
> there is the idea
> that all you need is time and access to the internet. But it is probably
not
> appropriate to think that you can pair program at grandma's house over
> Thanksgiving. Even though grandma has a 1Ghz pc and a cable modem. Pair
> programming is best done at regular scheduled intervals. I
> had the opposite problem. We had people over for thanksgiving and I was
> tempted too much to
> try to set something up. It just didn't work. We had people over and I was
> pre-occupied. Its better to just forget about it.
>
> There is also the temptation to read documentation or something while your
> pair is writing code or doing something else. The pair that is hosting the
> shared session can't see what you are doing anyhow. This kind of destroys
> the whole motiviation for pair programming. So unless there is some kind
of
> technology to share both desktops or lock the screens together in some
type
> of bidirectional way, you really don't know if you're pair programming or
> not.
>
> Having a phone headset as opposed to using the handset is mandatory for
any
> distributed XP'r.
> I used a handset and it really made my neck sore. No the speaker phone
> doesn't work well either. Don't even try a cellphone without a headset. My
> pair had to set the cellphone down when typing. It inhibits the work flow,
> you can't talk and type at the same time. And when you are typing you get
> the best ideas. But we did the best with what we had and did make alot of
> progress. It just wasn't as good as it could have been.
>
> Since you're using a phone you really cannot listen to music as it
> interferes with the phone and annoys your pair. This is a big deal for me.
> Phone resolution is much lower than cd resolution. So even if your pair
> likes the same type of music, it just doesn't work.
>
>
>
>
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