Comment by jimkoen

Mandating it is stupid, it obviously depends on the team, task and person.

But you can't deny that it's an amazing tool to open silos in terms of knowledge. I wish people would be more open to it, because I've never been able to get someone up to speed faster with a tool or codebase, than with pair programming. And vice versa too. If you're the person that knows less about the topic, pair programming with a senior is like a one on one tutoring session with a really skilled instructor. It's worth the time in gold imo.