Remote Pair Programming in IntelliJ

Question

Is there a way to use IntelliJ when pair-programming? It would be nice to have the option in v7 and v8 but I would upgrade to v9 if needed.

The question is a bit like thi

Answer 1

There is an open request for this feature (opened back in 2005). You can vote there and maybe that would be implemented at some stage.

http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-708

Answer 2

Late 2020, Jetbrains revealed their own plugin for remote pair-programming. It's called Code With Me.

It is available as an experimental feature in IntelliJ IDEA 2020.2.1 and later and can be found in the plugin marketplace.

Be warned though as the plugin will be promoted to a paid service in the future. Only early access is free. (See blog post attached)

An excerpt from the help page:

You can start a session with one of the following basic scenarios:

• You can do pair-programming, in this case you share your IDE with a single participant and either use the Full sync mode, or follow each other and collaborate on different parts of code. Unlike classic pair-programming where developers share a single screen and a keyboard, you can work independently and achieve the goal faster.

• You can have a teacher-students scenario where you have many participants who follow you. Let's say you need to explain a problem and show your team members different parts of your project. You can achieve that with the Force Others to Follow You mode.

• You can do simultaneous multi editing of your code with other participants. In this case, participants can quickly change the code and even work on other files of the project at the same time. However, there is a limitation on how many participants can actively type together. The limit is 5, and if it's reached, IntelliJ IDEA will display a popup suggesting to wait. Additionally, it might slow down the performance.

More information on the plugin page, the getting started page and the blog post.