I think this is a recommendation for a specific type of team working on a specific type of problem. I don't think Braintree is recommending you do this on your team -- this just how they do it on their team, and it seems to work for them.
For instance, I can see startup / smaller projects embracing this philosophy more simply because you probably have more members of your team who cross-cut components in terms of expertise and responsibility. In those instances, sometimes I want to know what's going on in other components (mainly because these components are, well, small). In larger companies, this would probably be less effective, since people are more specialized.
However, I think that the second point -- "Pairing accelerates new developers like a rocket" -- can and should be applied to all organizations. This is the biggest complaint I hear about internships -- too often, companies simply throw junior developers into the pool to swim because they're "not worth" devoting 2-3 days of "real" developer time to get the intern up to speed. Often times, the startup cost of learning the development process, learning the build, learning the framework, learning the test suite, etc., can slow down new employee onboarding by weeks.
For instance, I can see startup / smaller projects embracing this philosophy more simply because you probably have more members of your team who cross-cut components in terms of expertise and responsibility. In those instances, sometimes I want to know what's going on in other components (mainly because these components are, well, small). In larger companies, this would probably be less effective, since people are more specialized.
However, I think that the second point -- "Pairing accelerates new developers like a rocket" -- can and should be applied to all organizations. This is the biggest complaint I hear about internships -- too often, companies simply throw junior developers into the pool to swim because they're "not worth" devoting 2-3 days of "real" developer time to get the intern up to speed. Often times, the startup cost of learning the development process, learning the build, learning the framework, learning the test suite, etc., can slow down new employee onboarding by weeks.