Maybe you failed to invest the proper amount of time in the article? Perhaps you didn't pay enough attention, because you're lazy? I suppose you might be too overworked and stressed out to get it? Could it be that you used traditional reading practices? Is your work environment not conducive to reading a top N list? It could be that your boss doesn't care about excellence, which is why he hired a twit...

By chance, do you have halitosis?

I didn't think it was all that subtle, but either I was wrong or it just wasn't funny. My apologies to anyone who misinterpreted it.

You should have provided some flimsy anecdote, though, just to complete the emulation.

Pair programming doesn't work for everyone not because of those pretty dumb reasons. Pair programming doesn't work for everyone because not everyone is the same in their thought processes. Personally, I'm a very outgoing guy and when working with a team on a problem I love to throw ideas around and, if I'm the more knowledgeable one of the group, teach. But I know for sure that some people would rather work alone on a problem, and if that's what gets a problem done quicker and more efficiently, power to that person!

I was hoping this article would dive into the more social aspects of pair programming, but nope. Instead it was "your hardware sucks" or "your company sucks".

I would say "Pair programming? Yo, Obie, I already gotta pair!" in my best Andrew Dice Clay manner -- but with a German accent, my best Andrew Dice Clay manner is rather abysmal...

Hmm. Andrew "Würfel" Klay could sound interesting ...

The "holier-than-thou sense" is a major detriment to successful pair programming, as it is to any form of collaboration.

The mediocrity that surrounds a good programmer at a typical enterprise level shop is astounding. It surprises me that they allow some of the people to continue working there! There are a LOT of people out there that got into programming as a way to pay the bills and for those people, pair programming would probably be like torture.