Pair Programming is a proven technique that helps to improve code quality, transfer knowledge between developers, and gain valuable collaboration skills and experience. Just as important is the fact that this is a way to learn how other coders approach challenges and how they think.
Through Chingu Pair Programming you will:
- Meet a new coder every week to solve a coding challenge
- Take what you know to the next level by sharing your knowledge with others
- Learn new technologies and techniques from your peers
Every week we match people who are interested in learning and practicing Pair Programming to "level up".
To learn more about Pair Programming checkout this article
Pair Programming Sessions are scheduled weekly (Wednesday through Tuesday).
We take the weekly pair programming signups and make the most optimal matches based on a variety of criteria (timezone, tier, technical stack).
Your primary responsibilities are to learn more about how Pair Programming works, to help your partner achieve the same goal, and to hopefully make a new friend in the process.
This means you need to commit yourself to being responsive to your partner and participating in your scheduled Pair Programming session(s).
- You may signup for the next Pair Programming Session using the Pair Programming Match Request form. A link will also be posted in the
#announcements
channel every Monday morning. - We'll match you with a partner in a Discord channel on Tuesday after 5:00 p.m. CST/CDT (Chicago), which also contains next steps and tips for success. We'll email you when we've completed the matching process and we'll also post a status update in the
#announcements
channel. - When your Pair Programming channel is assigned introduce yourself to your partner and set up a time to meet online.
We suggest using the conferencing and screensharing that's built into Discord, but you may use any collaboration tool you prefer.
- Select a challenge you can complete within one week. You should choose a problem you both have an interest in. Sources for ideas include:
- Pick a feature in your favorite language, library, or framework!
- Florin Pop's App Ideas
- CodeWars
- Leetcode
- Hackerrank
- CodingGame
- HackerEarth
- ProjectEuler
- Create a design based on an idea from websites like Dribble
- During the remainder of the week you'll meet as many times as necessary with your partner to complete the challenge you've selected.
- At the end of the week we'll provide a feedback form you can use to share your Pair Programming experience with us and to help us improve this program.
If you have technical questions post them in the
#coding-help
channel.
- Choose a small challenge you can complete in a week based on the assumption that you and your partner will only be able to meet for a total of 2-4 hours over the week. This means the challenge you choose to solve will need to be very small.
- Carefully manage scope. Since each Pair Programming session is only a week there's no time to develop a "project".
- Choose a small problem like:
- Which is faster when processing all entries in an array? A
forEach
or afor-loop
? - How can the default color of an CSS element be dynamically modified from Javascript?
- Create a simply, static webpage using semantic HTML instead of the normal HTML tags.
- Which is faster when processing all entries in an array? A
- Remember that it is more important to work on your communication, collaboration, and team skills than it is to just solve a problem. These are skills you can use on the job and ones that can help set you apart from other job candidates.
- If there’s someone you’d like to be paired with add their name to the appropriate column in the signup form.