[t0mbstone]

The trick to pair programming is for each dev to have their own workstation with two screens.

Then, you simply use a screen sharing tool to share and collaborate on a code editor on each of your primary screens. We used to use Screenhero for this before they got bought out by Slack, but another tool that works well is something like Tuple.app or Drovio.

The beauty of this approach is that each person can "check out" temporarily and do research and look up stuff or check messages on their secondary monitor (without the other person seeing it), but they can easily move their mouse back over to their primary monitor and re-join in on the pair programming.

It makes pair programming a lot more tolerable, and gives you the ability to collaborate, while still having some flexibility and autonomy.

This also works well in both local and remote pairing sessions.