14 Best Code Collaboration & Pair Programming Tools for Remote Work

What is pair programming and why do you require pair programming tools?

Pair programming is an agile technique adapted by development teams to expedite the development process by sharing, reviewing, testing, and writing code in a collaborative fashion. Wikipedia simply puts it as two programmers working together. Now, it’s pretty obvious that in a remote setup, the driver and the navigator will not be sitting next to each other. So what then? You know you can always rely on us for remote working solutions! In this case, code collaboration & pair programming tools 😎

Usually, live-coding collaboration tools work with any Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). For example, tools such as GitLive and Live Share for VS. I would suggest a few guidelines to follow while you make the choice of a collaborative code editor and compiler apt for your remote teams:

What to look for in code collaboration tools

• Minimum configuration: Collaboration has to be quick. If the tool requires to configure the server, IDE’s, terminals, codebase, libraries, and so on, then probably that tool is not suitable for live-coding between teams.
• Ecosystem specific: Tools such as JSFiddle, used primarily by JavaScript developers are a top choice in this case. Such tools are designed specifically keeping in mind the best practices used by developers/ designers using the particular programming language/ framework.
• UI Customization: Programmers usually have a preference for a UI that they are most comfortable with. Having a poll among the developer teams regarding their preferences would allow you to choose the tool that best suits that requirement. A tool such as TeleType for Atom offers you the option to customize the styling.
• Security: A secure code repository to share and access libraries, code snippets & other artifacts is essential for effective collaboration. You should definitely check out CloudRepo for this.

A definite outcome of using collaboration technologies is the boost in business productivity. With a myriad of code collaboration & pair programming tools available in the market, below is a handpicked list of collaborative coding tools.