Pair programming in software development teams – An empirical study of its benefits

We present the results of an extensive and substantial case study on pair programming, which was carried out in courses for software development at the University of Dortmund, Germany. Thirteen software development teams with about 100 students took part in the experiments. The groups were divided into two sets with different working conditions. In one set, the group members worked on their projects in pairs. Even though the paired teams could only use half of the workstations the teams of individual workers could use, the paired teams produced nearly as much code as the teams of individual workers at the same time. In addition, the code produced by the paired teams was easier to read and to understand. This facilitates finding errors and maintenance.