Working through RDP/Citrix as a dev

I have heard of a practice on certain projects where the devs don't have direct access to the code on their machine.

​

Rather, they have to connect to another computer/VM/whatever using RDP or Citrix and do all of their work there.

​

This strikes me as

• Inefficient. There is latency, which means dev productivity is hurt.
• Paranoid. If you don't trust the devs, why are you employing them?

What do you think?