. @PearConf does not have any reference to XP for a good reason. It is time to stretch out all of the practices we think of in XP and look at how these now fit or not into our modern work lives....
There's also the fact that there are a LOT of us in San Francisco now who have worked at Pivotal Labs and boy have we seen the chinks in the armor, but there's never been a way to talk about that.
And then there are the companies we go to work for after we just can't take another 8 hour day of pairing at labs or we need to be able to pick our kids up from school. Here's the sad thing I learned about XP at Pivotal, IBM or any other employer doing straight up XP...
XP as a process creates the most ridiculous, non-inclusive hiring filter. BUT that does not mean there isn't a ton of value in the practices. How do we re-structure this to include working parents, people who need to work from home, how do we make it more humane?
Pair programming on its own is a great way to build a more inclusive work place, but making people pair program for 8 hours every day with no inclusivity or pair programming training is just punishment.
I'd like to see more workplaces pick up pair programming whether they do test driving or not. I'd like for teams who are interested in picking this up to have a place to go, which is the 2nd fun announcement bit of @PearConf
This time, it will include two optional workshops, 1 of them will be ally skills and one of the workshops will be for people who want to set up a pair programming practice in their team.
If these conversations and workshops sound interesting, follow @PearConf and you will see the details show up. You'll also see us tweeting out blog posts, threads about pair programming and pair programming tips.
