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Comment by hnlmorg | Hacker News Reader

The one feature I think lacking from IDEs is a way to remote collaborate. I know VSC does have a plugin that works (after a bit of tinkering) but I think having something built in would be a killer feature for teams who are on boarding and training junior developers in today's remote working / post COVID society.

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IntelliJ have this too.

But tbh, I've never found those tools to be useful. In my experience, Pair Programming is not only about code but also about processes (git, pull requests, the CI, IDE features, company internal tools ...). It's also inefficient if the involved team mates have different IDEs or habits ...

As of today, I've found nothing better than screen sharing. And screen sharing could totally be improved because, afaik, you have to choose between correct interaction (ability seamlessly to take control of the distant screen) or correct image quality (Zoom is pretty impressive).

Also, I'm open if you know collaboration tools with good screen sharing quality AND intuitive collaboration tools / distant control.

IntelliJ's "Code With Me" plugin still has a long way to go but is really good already: On the "client side", it feels like working in your own IDE (sometimes, you run into "not implemented yet" spots, but for the most part it just works) with zero latency, HiDPI resolution and a color scheme of your liking. Plus, you can work independently (all participants can type at the same time), look stuff up if your pairing partner scrolls too quickly (or too slowly) and you can even share a terminal (if you want) and run tests on the "host". There is also built-in port forwarding, so that you can run a webapp in your local browser.

I don't understand why you are trying to convince me that Code With Me is a solution since I precisely mentioned it in my post with everything that, imo, lacks in it (and in all the "live edit" collaboration tools).

Those tools cannot work, IMO, because programming never happens only in the IDE.

Netbeans had just this about 10 years ago (or was it more?) You could share editing, build, debugging live via a stock XMPP server. Until Sun killed it in favour of some half-arsed imitation that was supposed to make them money.

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