Understanding the impact of pair programming on the minds of developers

Abstract

Software is mostly, if not entirely, a knowledge artifact. Software best practices are often thought to work because they induce more productive behaviour in software developers. In this paper we deployed a new generation tool, portable multichannel EEG, to obtain direct physical insight into the mental processes of working software developers engaged in their standard activities. We have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach and obtained a glimpse of its potential power to distinguish physical brain activity of developers working with different methodologies.