Hiya, not sure if this is the right place to post this, but this year I’m looking to pair with 52 different developers to help improve myself as well as meet new people within the community. I’m looking for people from all backgrounds and experience levels, so if you have a project you’d like a hand with, some awesome ruby to show off, or would like to help me with a project I’m working on, please get in touch with me via these forums, or on the project site at 52pairs.com.
As a general rule, I’m scheduling people in for 2-3 hours, and so far have had pairs from places like Brisbane, Chicago and Tokyo, all of them have been amazing to work with and across varying skill levels. I’m keeping a blog up of the experiences as I go, so feel free to have a look on the site.
I’m happy to answer any questions you might have in here as well. Thanks for your time!
I really like this idea, but I am not sure if 2 - 3 hours is enough. I imagine just getting you setup and getting your mind wrapped around the problem & domain may take 2 - 3 hours.
Does it make sense to invest 2 - 3 hours getting someone up to speed on a project just not to accomplish much/anything meaningful?
That’s my biggest concern with this.
Other than that, I love this idea and would love to participate. I am just nervous it would be a waste of time because of the lack of actual meaningful code we will be able to go through.
@marcamillion I absolutely agree. Particularly when the problem is in someone else’s domain. That’s partially why I’m saying come pair with me on my project as opposed to just yours as it means I can constrain the domain to a particular feature or area and just work on that in relative isolation. That being said, I don’t want to discourage people from providing a similar opportunity through the code their working on. Nor do I want to leave them in the lurch if we’re halfway through a feature, but the 2-3 hour mark is usually the extent of peoples attention span so far.
Jumping on someone elses project is a little harder, but I try and do some research beforehand to get to know their project beforehand to make that transition easier. In addition to that, I generally start marking out what they’d like to work on specifically so we can just be focussed on one or two tasks. Not to mention, I’m not usually stopping there and have been following up with my previous pairs to see where and if I can give them a hand further. That said, it is definitely still a process im refining.
Specifically with relation to my project, I’m not looking to make even necessarily complete a feature with a pair, but to go hey I’m working on x, come share your thoughts on how to approach this particular problem with me. The nice thing about this is that it doesnt require any ongoing commitment from the pair, I can just keep tracking on with the problem if they have to leave.
The goal is 52 pairs, but frankly I’m not bothered when I hit this target, just that I do, which means I’m pretty flexible to having more than one session if required, but generally I’m unable to offer more than 2-3 hours at a time.
Like you said, it’s an investment from both ends, and you want to be able to get something from your time, but if you have an idea, feel free to shoot it in my direction. I’d rather be flexible and worth that investment of time, than have you feel constrained by any limitations on my part.
@marcamillion awesome! Looking forward to hearing from you, please let me know if you have any other questions you need answered and I’ll get back in touch as soon as possible.
Forgive me for piggy backing your post, but I’m also interested in pairing remotely with somebody just for the experience. Shoot me a PM if interested. I don’t have anything in particular to pair on right now, but maybe one of the upcase exercises would be a good candidate?