
Show HN: Codassium - WebRTC-based video chat and code editor for interviews - karterk
http://codassium.com
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lelandbatey
This is very awesome (I was talking with someone the day before last about how
something like this should exist).

On a very different note: why is it that the default "tab" in so many of these
online editors is just two spaces? It seems to be a thing in many online code
based editors, and I don't know why. Is that a common convention for the
languages that the authors of these in-browser-editors use? What's the deal?
And why can't I change it to four spaces?

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mweibel
Well, I'll be that guy then: Why are people not using tabs instead of spaces?

Really: I couldn't care less about how much spaces my team mate is using for a
tab. I just know: Indent by tab, and everyone can set their settings on their
own and it looks always perfectly indented.

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sgk284
Relevant: <http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html>

tl;dr; Spaces are the correct technical choice due to interop issues with TAB.

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BHSPitMonkey
Interop issues which, in real life, never actually surface as issues for
anybody.

I'm personally in the camp that feels that spaces are logically inferior; A
tab uses one character to represent some atomic idea that you intend to
declare (an indent level). Replicating this intent with sequences of repeated
spaces is on par with centering text on a web page by using

    
    
        &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hello World!
    

instead of setting the text-align CSS style. (Just as that method prevents the
browser from centering the text correctly according to the user's chosen
viewport size, so using spaces for indentation prevents an editor from letting
a user read code the way they would prefer to.)

Of course, if the project/platform you're working in has an established style
guide or convention in place, go with that :)

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mweibel
Exactly that is what I think as well.

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jpterry
Myself and some friends built a very similar tool during the LAUNCH hackathon.
It's a shared code editor with some github integration for saving your work,
and webrtc handling the video chat. Check it out, we'd love some feedback.
<https://seshcode.com>

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xoail
I am somehow against people expecting me to write syntactical code at job
interviews. I prefer to write pseudo code, explain my thought process. Being a
guy who deals with various languages throughout the day makes it hard to code
everything right when someone looking over my shoulder as I tend to google now
and then to get right functions/methods of achieving something. Thats just me
I guess.

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epoxyhockey
You're not the only one. I've experienced many types of interviewing: skyping,
verbally coding, online code editing, in-person whiteboard coding,
homework/coding tests, programming language trivia, math brain teasers, etc.
The funny thing is that even when getting all of the questions "correct," they
haven't ever gotten me closer to a job offer than more traditional methods.

You can tell within the first 10 seconds of your first interaction with a
company if they are actually interested in hiring you, or just window
shopping. The conversation starts with the HR person/hiring manager talking up
their company, asking about your experience and then essentially asking you
how soon you can start.

In other words, if someone doesn't already have a good idea that they want to
hire you based on your resume and experience, no amount of code circus is
going to move the chains forward.

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jiangth
This look fantastic. One suggestion I would make is to have a chatbox incase
both parties do not have a webcam.

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johns
Even if you have a webcam a chat is still useful to share links, etc that
aren't code. I'm betting a lot of people would use comments in code as an ad-
hoc chat.

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karterk
Totally agree with you. Wanted to get this out of the door - otherwise I tend
to keep adding "one more feature".

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johns
You've got something really great so far. I'd start charging immediately :)

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karterk
Thank you! Mind if I emailed you to ask you some questions on that? :)

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johns
You are more than welcome to (email is my twitter handle in my profile at
gmail). However, you should ask them here so everyone can benefit!

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karterk
First Show HN :) Any feedback greatly appreciated :)

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mnicole
Really enjoying the concept of this! A few friends of mine and I do JavaScript
lessons over Google Hangout right now and this would be a much preferred
alternative, although it doesn't seem to allow more than two people's cams at
once.

I realize this is for interviews and there'd be no reason to have this unless
you were potentially testing multiple candidates at once, but it would also be
useful to us if we each had our own code environments that didn't interfere
with the master source, but could be public or private to the others in the
room. Just an idea. :)

~~~
karterk
I agree with you. A private editor or the ability to have tabs will be useful.
The learning part did cross my mind, but I wanted to focus on a specific use-
case instead of diluting the message by pitching it as a general purpose tool.

 _although it doesn't seem to allow more than two people's cams at once._

More than 2 people works fine for me. Is anyone else facing this issue?

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mnicole
Interesting, I'm not sure what my deal is, maybe it's a firewall here at work.
I was able to see the live editing going on in the box but the only cam
preview was mine.

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karterk
It might also be because of the pounding that the server is taking currently,
though it seems to be holding up fine. :) If you get a chance, please try some
time later and let me know if it works then. Thanks.

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jeffling
If you could combine this with runnable or something, in order to run tests,
that would be great

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emhart
It occurs to me that this could actually be a very handy way to get help from
more competent friends as I'm learning to code. I've had offers to review my
code, but being able to do it live would be great. Great tool!

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smallegan
Love the idea but just tried it with a buddy and we could share text but
neither one of us saw the other one. We could however see ourselves.

~~~
karterk
There might still be some quirks/bugs due to stuff like firewalls and anti-
virus software. I'm hoping that this becomes more polished in the future
versions of Chrome and Firefox.

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thedangler
What was used to build this? How are the languages being handled? And open
source frameworks. I'm interested in the real time coding.

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jdelsman
This could also be a cool way to remote pair, no?

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mattnish
Nice work Codassium. I helped with Seshcode. It's great to see other people
building awesome coder tools too.

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karterk
Thanks :)

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sandyarmstrong
Anybody know the correct about:config tweaks required to try this in Firefox
20? Or is FF 21 required?

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sandyarmstrong
FF 21 update hit me and it works now.

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rizwan
Very very cool. First feature request: Support for Objective-C syntax
highlighting :)

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dylanjha
Good job. WebRTC ftw. Anyone using it for recruiting?

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Jeremy1026
Any chance of PHP syntax highlighting being added?

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karterk
Noted. Will add it, thanks.

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lucidrains
so is anyone going to attempt an in-browser skype-like clone with webrtc? i
might do it if no one else does

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maslam
Nice!

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luisbebop
awesome!

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juancaldera
awesome

