pair programming (pair producing) - getting from zero to $1 in passive income

Yesterday, we recorded a podcast where we talked a LOT about passive income streams (or residual income streams).   A couple of days before starting, we did a poll of my patreon peeps asking about residual income stuff

https://www.patreon.com/paulwheaton
https://www.patreon.com/posts/residual-income-23657671

And the #1 response was

i want to do residual income streams, but I have not yet figured out which one is for me

So here is the thing we recorded:



And in that, we not only list of a LOT of potential passive income streams, but I go into detail about my first, and several others.   And we talk about jacob doing the same.  And we talk a lot about what it takes to get started.

But .... here it is the next day and I have one more thing to add that we did not discuss there.


When i was a software engineer, I experienced something called "pair programming".  This is something that people don't want to do, but if you actually do it, you build superpowers.  If a team does it, trading who they pair with every day, the whole team develops super-super-powers.  

Setting the super powers aside for a moment, let me try to quickly describe what it is.   Two people, one keyboard.   One person is "the driver" and is actively typing.   The other person is "the partner" and is doing everything in their power to help "the driver" realize the vision of the driver.   "The partner" will be tempted to be a backseat driver, or distract from the task, but that is not allowed.  Every hour, the keyboard switches hands.


So, how does this apply to getting from zero to your first dollar in passive income?   I think the #1 thing that is stopping people is getting over that first bit.  "Try 100 things.  2 will work out, but you never know in advance which 2."   I think people are stuck at "thing 1".  They might even be stuck at "make a list of 3 things that might grow into a list of 100 things".  

Further, I know i have things I need to do .  i will look at a prioritized list of 2000 things to do, and the first 12 are the highest priority, but for some reason "I don't wanna."  So I work on item #12 instead.  And items #1 to #11 get kinda rusty.   Maybe dangerously rusty.  But if somebody sits with me and does "pair programming" I quickly knock out items #1 and #2.  Magic?


So to get past from "not started on thing 1" to "started on thing 1", it is possible that people need to try a wee bit of pair programming.   Maybe there is another person that could use a bit of pairing on similar stuff.   Make an agreement "one hour for me and one hour for you."

Recipe #1:   use google docs while on the phone.  You can each see where the cursor is for the other.  One person is typing and the other is correcting typos.   And the whole time, the driver has to keep talking and describing what is in their head and what they are trying to do.  The partner helps to keep them talking and get stuff written.  

Recipe #2:  use zoom and do a share screen thing.



Gotta bolt - I have a pair programming session starting in a few minutes, and I'm pretty good at not being late.

Watched this last night and I really liked it!

About the million dollars thing, that would be an interesting documentary/experiment.
Find a stereotypical Ferb.  He gets a million bucks but he has to do two things first:
1) he has to make an itemized list of everything he wants to buy
2) he has to spend a year being mentored by Gert and living the permaculture lifestyle to get it
In the end, he gets a big fat check, but... we check back a year later to see if he actually bought the things on the list or whether his priorities have changed.

Awesome video! Just finished listening to it! And I just started a potential passive-ish income while you were saying "gumption" and talking about put the effort in.
I just recently uploaded a few photos to twenty20.

Is there an analogous form of paired programming that involves pears? Or bears? Or..?

Really though I missed the connection between paired programming and getting that first $, in cases where people aren't programmers at all!

Anyway that was a good podcast, thanks! Watched most of it. Never heard of ERE or their wheaton scale spinoff before

Maybe instead of "pair programming" we need something like "pair working" or "pair computing".  

Pair producing?

early retirement extreme website
the book on amazon.com

permies thread about the book with reviews

This is something that people don't want to do, but if you actually do it, you build superpowers.  If a team does it, trading who they pair with every day, the whole team develops super-super-powers.

I have seen developers that were pretty worthless turned into damn good developer in about two months.  

I know that when I have done it, I feel like I learn far more than if I attended a bunch of classes or a conferences.   And it is as if it came for free - while I was doing work anyway.

Math says that if you have 8 developers and 4 workstations, you would get half as much done than if you had 8 developers with 8 workstations.   But the evidence shows that you get almost twice as much done.  In other words, you get four times more stuff done than the math says you will get done.  

I am going to say it again, because it is confusing:     You get double productivity with half the workstations.