Pair programming is a transformative learning experience that improves software development skills rapidly.
Nathan Sobo describes his experience at Pivotal Labs with pair programming, where working closely with another developer significantly accelerated his learning and led to the vision for Zed to replicate this collaborative experience over the internet. ✦ AI generated
Nathan Sobo · Syntax · 2026-08-12 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 2:23
“Would you like to get into I know I gave a little bit of a backstory on who you are, but maybe like you could dive in just a little bit more of how you ended up at Zed?”
And that taught me so much. I got I became such a better software developer so rapidly. Um but I always wanted a tool that could replicate that experience that we had in this shared office, like over the internet, and turn the internet into that whole experience. And Zed is as close as I've ever gotten um until what comes next.
verbatim transcript · starts at 2:23
2:23uh was a pair programming shop. You would show up and they'd be 9:00 to 6:00 with a 1-hour 1-hour lunch break, just uh pairing all day long. >> Really? >> And back then we would plug two keyboards into the same machine, two keyboards, two mice, and just like work through problems together, code together. >> Huh. >> And that taught me so much. I got I became such a better software developer
2:48so rapidly. Um but I always wanted a tool that could replicate that experience that we had in this shared office, like over the internet, and turn the internet into that whole experience. And Zed is as close as I've ever gotten >> [clears throat] >> um until what comes next. >> Yes. Yes. So, I can't wait to get into what comes next cuz I I got a a preview
3:11of it and and it it definitely like takes it makes sense to hear you say that about pair programming given uh what I have seen in this. So, that that's really super super cool. So, you you pick Zed and was Rust uh because Zed is built on Rust, right? From the ground up. Was Rust the choice initially or did you land on Rust somehow? >> Well, once upon a time I uh talked the
3:39founders of GitHub into hiring me to build an editor called Atom. >> Yes. >> Some people may remember. And in the process of creating Atom, we uh also created this framework called Electron, which is still around and probably running on all of our machines in some shape or form, eating well way more RAM than the apps that it's running really justify. Um so yeah, the Atom the big idea with Atom