How do you collaborate with other coders in real time? [closed]

Question

Pretend you're hitting me up for some javascript help on IM. How can you make it as easy as possible for me to help you get your code working?

I run into this all the time. I'm on instant messenger and someone is asking me a question (or maybe it's me that's asking them) and we have lots of back-and-forth communication trying to work on the same bit of code. Instant messengers aren't well suited for this. Email is slow, a little can get a little hard to follow with enough back and forth.

Here's what I've tried:

Google Docs: - Requires a google account and isn't exactly real-time. Hard to know when/where other users might be editing.

Pastie.org - This is really great for sharing code, but not for 2-way collaboration. I love the interface (sample) but I can't edit with other people in real time.

EtherPad - Looked promising, but buckles under the load with only a few users. Some guys at work were trying to get us to use this, but we kept having performance issues and even a couple browser crashes.

CollabEdit - This one actually looks great (just found it right now). I haven't actually used it with anyone yet. It feels lightweight and responsive enough. Anyone had any luck with this one?

Gobby - I'm going to have a hard time getting people to install something like this when what they/I really need is some quick, ad-hoc collaboration. Having said that- maybe it's worth looking into for people I collaborate with regularly? Anyone used it?

JSbin - We tried to use this on a number of occasions since most of the people I work with are javascript guys (we work at a web development agency). The "sandbox" javascript functionality is wonderful. However, we can't collaborate live, in real time. We can generate new links after editing code, but that's only a small step better than emailing it to each other (or using Pastie.org)

Screen Sharing - I've only seen this work well between Mac users. If the other developer is on OSX 10.5 (Leopard), sharing screens in iChat is trivial. Other than that, I'm not aware of free, reliable, no-fuss screen sharing.

-- Added -- VNC - The barrier for entry is just too high on this one. Installing software, getting around network firewalls, adding exceptions to local firewalls... yuck. I'm talking fast "hey do these lines look right?" collaboration here. -- /end --

...whew.

Okay, so what do you use?

I think the ideal service would be something that's free, web-based, and purpose driven (hey... kinda like Stackoverflow).

Answer 1

I use GNU Screen.

Answer 2

For a general solution, you could try a VNC option (e.g. tightVNC). This will allow you to share the same desktop. There's ultraVNC for example that I think will let you share a window only.

A Windows specific solution might be NetMeeting (Start -> Run -> conf), where you can share a 'whiteboard' and I am pretty sure you can share a window as well, if you try.