Remote Pairing
I’ve been spending roughly 4 - 8 hours a day doing remote pair-programming lately. Although there are always connectivity issues (usually once or twice per day), it’s still only a minor nuisance. Overall, I’m really enjoying the experience and it’s starting to feel pretty close to side-by-side pairing.
The tools that I use on a daily basis include Microsoft SharedView for screen sharing and Skype for voice and video. The combination of these two tools seems to work very well (even over wireless).
SharedView is still in beta, but it is a very nice, minimal, and responsive tool. With the exception of the ads (integrated into the tool), I’m impressed. I’ve used many other tools in the past but this one just seems to fit the way I work better. The features like the ability to see other mouse pointers, clicking, and highlighting is a very nice feature.
Right now, the only thing that consistently bugs me is the quality of my headset (junk). I’m hoping to pick up a new one in the next couple of days.