Kathy Sierra writes about being a loner and how it makes pair programming very frustrating. I can see her point – some people enjoy being alone and don’t like feeling crowded by others. That is different to not being a team player – loners can be very good in a team, but they do run into trouble when the team happens to be using pair programming or is just a very “in each others back-pocket” type of team.

I’m not sure what the answer is. As a manager (and I was always a really bad one), I’d probably be tempted to say sacrifice the one for the many. But does that really, in the long run, serve the company and the team best? Is there really no other way to get the benefits of XP Pair Programming than by this particular (sit side-by-side, etc.) implementation? Because True Loners aren’t against team work and being with people There is a way. Move to the other side of the world and communicate electronically. I’m serious (though moving to the other side of the world is optional, a different cubicle would do). I work in a company that has people working from the two different offices in the US, two or three different places in Australia and one guy in India. We communicate electronically with a lot of success. The combination of instant messaging, voice chat (if your in the next cubicle that would be equivalent of poking your head around the corner) and email is extremely powerful for collaboration. If you wanted to take it a step further and do full on pair programming, add in something like SubEthaEdit so you can both see and edit the same document. The combination of either voice chat or instant messaging and SubEthaEdit would probably be perfect for a loner doing pair programming. Personally, I think I’m a half-loner. I love being alone, I tend to dislike family gatherings and I often come across as anti-social. Despite that, if I’m alone too long I do get lonely. Then again, I’d say that anyone who says they don’t get lonely has either never truly been alone or is lying. Sure there are hermits that spend their lives hidden away from everyone but I doubt they never feel lonely at least a little.