On Tue, 27 May 2003, Vaughn Treude wrote:

> Another option (I almost hate to suggest it, because the concept 
> seems pretty noxious to a "cowboy programmer" like me), might be to use the 
> "pair programming" approach pushed by the Extreme Programming methodology.  
> This could have a lot of value in the early stages of one's employment and/or 
> contract.  Of course, I'm assuming you have enough competent developers to 
> act as mentors for the new ones.  :-)
> 
I have no experience with "pair programming,"
but I had a mentor when I started working and
it was good.

Being a good mentor is hard; one has to allocate
time learning about mentoring.

To an extent, a local user group such as PLUG 
plays the role of a mentor.

Here is a quote from UCLA professor Phil Agre.

"Knowledge lives in communities, not individuals.  
 A computer user who's not part of a community of 
 computer users is going to have a harder time of 
 it than one who is."

How to help someone use a computer
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/how-to-help.html