Today I started pair programming with the interns. The plan is to spend an hour or two with each of them, one per day. In a couple of weeks, we’ll probably do the same thing. Without much time to spare, this exercise requires a little extra time out of my evenings, but it’s worth it.
Since digging into their code a little more, I’ve noticed the big ideas are there, but the design patterns are still a bit green. The key though is to refactor in small enough steps they can understand how their code transforms into a tighter system.