>With Fleet you can collaborate on code in real time
Genuine question - Does anyone actually do this? What for?
I have been writing code for about 25 years and not once did I wish for someone else to start editing the same files I’m editing in real time. Yet, this seems like a huge selling point for some of these editors.
You've never been on one computer with another developer and eventually just hand them the keyboard? (or Vice-Versa) Or on a work call sharing your screen, where you give them remote control of your screen? (or vice-versa) This is a way to let someone else collaborate with you, within their configured IDE, with their preferred plugins and tooling configuration.
If you don't do any peer programming, then you wouldn't understand it.
I've been working for the same company for over 7 years and a lot of the shared code that other developers use is mine.
Frequently I would guide other developers to implementing something and in doing so I'd guide them down to what files to open and how to integrate it. I find this process a lot more convenient over Zoom where I can annotate with a pencil. I use that to underline blocks of code. It's a bit like you have a mouse and I have a mouse on the same screen but in a nice way.
In a workflow like that I sometimes want to write pseudo code and I would very much welcome a feature like that. Currently JetBrains has a "Code with me" plugin or something similar, but it's a bit laggy and struggles when fast typers meet. And a feature like that is good both when I take my laptop and sit next to you, and when we're on Zoom while talking.
It's helpful for mentoring or pair programming with another person. They can more clearly see the code as you change it, like Google Docs, rather than just watching a screenshare.
It was an experiment at one company I had for maybe 6 mo and failed miserably. Also a coder here for ~20 years. Code was slightly less error prone and slightly more predictable in LOE but productivity dropped massively. Most importantly all the developers hated it.
Same. I've only used collaborative tools like Google Docs with other people exactly once in college for a group report. Naturally we procrastinated so long that we were knocking it out the day it was due. I must say it did a good job adding momentum.
Other than that never in my professional experience as a programmer. Except for open source work I was helping with. 3 of us would meet on Jitsi main contributor would sometimes share an SSH session with us in addition to streaming live coding sessions. Don't recall it actually being useful though. Dunno. It's probably one of those features that if it works well and is easy, then I might use it more.
I've used it a total of 2 times since I first saw the ability in Atom back in 2017. Once was more for the "this seems neat, let's try it" factor. The other was a legitimate, let's troubleshoot an issue while staring at the same massive screen together. It's not a bad feature, it just never stuck with my workflow - I typically hop on a Zoom call now days, someone shares their screen and pair program the old fashioned way (by yelling out stuff like one does when someone else is playing solitaire)
Genuine question - Does anyone actually do this? What for?
I have been writing code for about 25 years and not once did I wish for someone else to start editing the same files I’m editing in real time. Yet, this seems like a huge selling point for some of these editors.