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
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