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Visual Studio Live Share

code.visualstudio.com

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Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#51
post #4
post #3

Screen sharing is such a drag using Skype. Everything goes slow as poop even on the fastest of MacBooks. Yet for a lot of purposes doing a screen share is super valuable. I imagine Live Share is much leaner much alike watching somebody changing a Google Doc in front of your nose.

Personally I'd find it irritating, as I do with Google Docs. This is a neat gimmick but I don't think it'll revolutionise anything or end up being the status quo in the future.

I can see it being extremely useful for group projects in university settings...

Pair programming is okay with two people looking at one screen, but once you have more than two people, it really is just a drag. Of course, you can use git and contribute separately. But looking at the same version of the code seems tremendously useful.

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#52
I prefer to just do screen sharing with an audio conversation going to maximize the learning and flexibility. Since I also like Sococo, I prefer to just stick to that, since that is one of the features it provides. I will now explain why.

I disagree with what was said in the video about how there are many reasons you don't want to share your entire screen. With a little care, it is actually reverse, there are many things you are missing out on if you are not sharing your entire screen. I will explain this more in a moment. I also disagree that both people being able to edit the code is a good thing. I will explain more about that in a moment. Admittedly there are situations where you actually want to control the other person's computer, but you can't have both the benefits of being able to control their computer and the benefits of not being able to, so I prefer to not be able to.

On screen sharing. The reason I prefer to share my entire screen is basically this is more flexible. There inevitably ends up being other windows and programs that have some relevant information I want to show them. It might be a web browser or something else. Prior to sharing my screen I reduce the number of monitors I'm using to 2, and I increase my font size for my editor and browser.

On computer control. I recently read an article about strong style pairing. It really resonated with me because it reminded me of something I either read or heard, can't remember which, about the current recommended way of doing mob programming. I think the main benefit is it maximizes learning. The concept is the same for both types of collaborative programming, but for some reason I never considered that it could also work with pair programming as well. Basically, you have your driver and your mapper. The driver is the one with their hands at the keyboard and mouse. The mapper is the one who tells them what to do. The mapper explains what to do at the highest level of abstraction that they both understand, and they increase the level of detail as necessary if the driver does not understand them. The driver is supposed to trust their mapper. This takes a lot of discipline to work this way, but if you are just doing screen sharing, you really don't have a choice, which makes it easier to force yourself to stick to this.

Here are the advantages of strong style pairing. It allows the mapper to keep their head on the bigger picture, while simultaneously still being the one who is really in control. Traditionally the driver would be in control, and this would free up the mapper to think on a higher level. But then it is easy for the mapper to get distracted, and there is always this nagging feeling it is not really worth having two people at the same computer. In this way, the driver is like a human interface the mapper can use to control the computer. It is as if they can talk to the computer and tell it what to do! By not having to focus on actually making the edits, they are able to plan ahead and keep more of the plan in their head. This allows them to always be ready to give the driver the next instruction as soon as the driver executes their previous one. Since the mapper is in control, they need to know how to do what they want to do. Therefore the editor and language that the driver will use, is the one the mapper wants to use. This is great because the driver can quickly pick up new editors, IDEs, and languages fairly quickly, just by driving with an expert mapper for a few days. For the same reason this makes strong style pairing work great when you want to pair experts with people at a lower skill level, which might be more frustrating otherwise. In that case, the expert is normally the driver. If the driver really has an idea they want to try out, you would switch roles for a time rather than the driver taking control.

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#53
post #20

Super no thanks. There's too much risk in this work for bloaty, spying type code to land in the editor because of this. I'm sure the team at Microsoft is super talented, but this seems like an awful product direction.

PM at Microsoft. Thanks for the feedback - we're thinking hard about ways to ensure that the changes that land in your code is only that which you expect. Are there specific features that you'd need before you'd be comfortable using something like this?

Ah, a wonderful response. That’s for keeping your ears open on what customers actually want.

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#54
post #9

This really shows how seriously they are taking VSC. Very cool.

We're definitely very serious about Visual Studio Code :)

Is there any plan on adding built in FTP capabilities?, I would love to get rid of my current IDE and use VSC but is a hassle changing the code there and uploading using some FTP client

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#55
post #51
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'd find it irritating, as I do with Google Docs. This is a neat gimmick but I don't think it'll revolutionise anything or end up being the status quo in the future.

I can see it being extremely useful for group projects in university settings... Pair programming is okay with two people looking at one screen, but once you have more than two people, it really is just a drag. Of course, you can use git and contribute separately. But looking at the same version of the code seems tremendously useful.

When I was at university doing programming, we just sat three people to a machine.

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#57
post #29
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey there! Another PM on Visual Studio Live Share here. Security is absolutely something we are designing for. Microsoft will not be collecting data on the code. The code is not stored or uploaded in the cloud in any way. Rather, it is just a connection that is established between you and the teammate you are sharing with. There's more details in the FAQ here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/live-share-…

Really? So Microsoft just provides name resolution, and the data goes peer-to-peer? Or maybe this “connection” is actually going through your servers and we have to take your word for not peeking inside the packets?

Seems pretty easy to verify where the traffic is going with Wireshark once it comes out. Given how easy it would be for anyone to check that (especially in a product targeted at developers, who are likely to know how to use network diagnostic tools), it seems rather pointless to lie about where the traffic goes.

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#58

PM on the Visual Studio Live Share team here. Thanks for posting! We're really excited to hear folks thoughts about this experience, how it can help improve their existing team collaboration workflows, and how we can continue to improve/learn. So please sign up and/or let us know what you think :) We've heard pretty loud and clear that developers want better collaboration tools, without needing to switch editors, wit…

Important question: if I have configured my editor with the one true way (VIM), and the remote has some dumb evil way setup (not VIM), are we able to be separately good and evil?

Re: Visual Studio Live Share

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're definitely very serious about Visual Studio Code :)

Is there any plan on adding built in FTP capabilities?, I would love to get rid of my current IDE and use VSC but is a hassle changing the code there and uploading using some FTP client

Why not use one of the extensions? https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=FTP&target=...
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