Speakers
Description
Would your code be better if you had someone by your side to talk through it? Or would your code be clearer if you might have to hand over the keyboard to someone at any moment?
Pair programming is a collaboration technique widely used in the software industry – it involves two people working together on one programming task. One person is the driver, suggesting solutions and typing the code; the other person is the navigator, helping with problem-solving and spotting mistakes. After a short time, they swap roles.
Pair programming can improve the reproducibility of your data analysis and quality of your code. It is also useful in teaching – making data analysis and statistics courses more interactive and more scalable (students help each other first, before coming to the instructor for help). Whether you are a teacher or not, pair programming is a method to teach and learn at the same time while building community.
In this interactive workshop, we will give you a taste of pair programming, with tasks in R. We will introduce the concept, its structure, and provide a live demo covering practicalities such as sharing code when switching roles and mindsets for success. Then you will be paired with another person and given a set of small challenges to solve together. The best way to understand pair programming is to experience it! You will practice both pair programming roles, and you will get a chance to reflect on your experience, leaving ready to try pair programming in your own context.
Learning goals (only for tutorials)
Leave the workshop with an understanding of and answers to pair programming: what, how, why. That is, what pair programming is, why and when you might want to use it, and how to do it yourself
Prerequisites (only for tutorials)
Basic R knowledge, Laptop with R installed not required but desirable
If you used AI tools or services to support the preparation of this submission, please state the name and reason for using each of them.
No AI tools/services were used
Target audience (only for tutorials)
any R users from novices to seasoned useRs
| Keywords: Please list up to 5 keywords to help us find the right session for your contribution. | pair programming, debugging, community, quality, learning-teaching |
|---|---|
| Virtual Option | This submission is for onsite presentation only |
| Video Recording | Video sharing is fine |
| The author(s) agree(s) to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the submission and is/are authorized to present it. | Confirm |
| Interested in serving as reviewer? | b.blankinship@ed.ac.uk |