Is Pair Programming Dead? | Code Quality & Engineering Culture Debate

Summary
This week on Overcommitted, Brittany, Bethany, and Erika try out a new format: instead of interviewing a guest, the three of them rate a running list of software engineering topics as overrated or underrated. They start with the fun stuff — dark mode, mechanical keyboards, standing desks, Vim, dotfiles — before moving into practices and process, where the real disagreements show up. Pair programming and code review as a quality gate both get contested, with opinions that have shifted noticeably since AI tools entered the picture.

From there the conversation covers stand-ups, sprint retros, story point estimation, 1:1s with managers, microservices, serverless, feature flags, software rewrites, vibe coding, and the myth of the 10x engineer, with each host landing in a different place on more than a few of them. It's a faster-paced, more opinionated episode than usual, and a good one for anyone who wants to hear three engineers who've worked together for years actually disagree on record.

Links
• Loop Engineering Blog Post: brittany-ellich.offprint.app/a/3mrjj34puva23-1…
• Steve Yegge Blog Post: yegge.ai/essays/the-shape-of-things-to-come
• Rewrites Talk: youtube.com/watch?v=fhlnan0dSUE&t=5s (youtube.com/watch?v=fhlnan0dSUE&t=5s)
• Sean Goedecke Article: seangoedecke.com/you-dont-have-to-be-smart-if-…

Hosts
• Overcommitted: ⁠overcommitted.dev
• ⁠Bethany Janos: ⁠trustyduck.dev/⁠ (trustyduck.dev)
• Brittany Ellich: ⁠brittanyellich.com
• ⁠Erika Eggemeyer: ⁠github.com/eggyhead