

This real-time coding environment could take social code to the next level - Wump
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/07/10/hey-developers-this-real-time-coding-environment-could-take-social-code-to-the-next-level/

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bradleyland
Social coding rarely means working on the same file at the same time. In order
for work to proceed efficiently, there has to be some separation of work and
responsibility.

I do think, however, that this will be great for code review and teaching.
None of our developers are in the same place. We use Github and Gists to
collaborate, escalating to a MeetingBurner session if we really need eyes on a
conflict all at once. Those instances are infrequent, but on the business
side, the sales and marketing teams use Google Docs to great effect when
collaborating on their documents.

The ability to see someone else's cursor and watch their edits in real time is
a major force multiplier. Documents reach a final stage much more quickly than
they do with the old "track changes and email" approach. I can't help but see
parallels in the dev team's approach, even with Git.

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Permit
I can't help but be reminded of <http://xkcd.com/927/> every time I see a new
collaborative editor. Whether it's Cloud9, Google Collide, Collabedit or
Space, one must sacrifice all the benefits of their current IDE in order to
use this one. Wouldn't these sorts of projects make infinitely more sense as a
plugin for an established text editor or IDE like Sublime or Visual Studio?

~~~
aantix
Couldn't agree more. I wrote up similar thoughts a few months ago where I
tried to outline a lightweight protocol that would be implemented at the
editor level (as a plugin) to support common editor functions such as opening
files, switching tabs, and of course real-time syncing.

<https://gist.github.com/1999816>

~~~
Permit
I hadn't even considered a cross text-editor solution/protocol. That's a
fantastic idea.

~~~
jaggederest
I don't like it. People should be required to use Emacs to be privileged to
program with me.

~~~
Produce
You misspelled Vim.

~~~
jaggederest
Clearly you don't understand that Emacs is a perfectly suitable Vim.

~~~
Produce
Why would I emulate perfection?

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drharris
I'm not bullish on the idea of real-time collaborative coding. Maybe a simple
CRUD app can handle that sort of thing, but anyone who's spent days debugging
a corner case knows that the presence of someone else tends to just complicate
the process. I agree with others that this could be great as a
teaching/mentoring tool, or maybe an easier way to do code reviews. Just not
seeing the point with collaborative coding.

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kleiba
It's funny - all these "real time code collaboration" editors that have been
popping up lately remind me of a job at a research institute I had some 15
years ago. There we would sometimes do a `xhost -`, set the DISPLAY variable
and just open a second Emacs frame on the remote machine. Of course that gives
the other person pretty much full access to all your local files, but come on,
we were all buddies there...

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antihero
It's like P = x^n where n is how much a bit of code is pissing me off, n is
how many people are working on it, and P is how much I am actually pissed off.

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yawgmoth
It seems apparent to me that Space's best use would be education of
programming through pair programming. Or, imagine a lecture being taught with
Space - each student watching the prof (and, of course, _not_ deleting
everything she types) code on their laptop rather than on a projector.

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mahyarm
A reliable shared web code editor with syntax highlighting would be great for
interviews. I've tried a few, but they crap out. Or the editors don't support
the languages I care about, like Objective C. I've been living with Skype
screencasts.

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stewie2
I don't understand social coding. If I'm working on file A and someone is
working on file B. I want to compile the project and test the changes I just
made to A, But someone happened to break file B, so the project won't compile.
Then what?

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pwpwp
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines>

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the_cat_kittles
While I don't really want this for coding, something like this for a music
editor (DAW) would really be fantastic.

~~~
daralthus
Actually there is at least one: <http://www.ohmstudio.com/>
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4eRu7iHR_I&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4eRu7iHR_I&feature=player_embedded)

~~~
the_cat_kittles
Very cool, thanks for linking me to this!

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wavephorm
I have never encountered a scenario where I need to work on the same file, at
the same time as somebody else.

That's what revision control is for. This looks like it was built by people
who don't use a revision control system.

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drivebyacct2
Oh my god, oh my god. Yes please. Please open source this. I'd love to be able
to open a browser and have my workspace spring to life and I'd love to be able
to pair program with two computers, keyboards, mice.

