I know that for now this blog has been all about SQL and PostgreSQL, but I had no plans to exclusively talk about these topics, it just happened. So, for the first time, let’s talk about something else, let’s talk about remote pair programming.
Recently I have been involved in a few projects and some of them requires pair programming sessions, the only problem being that the contributors don’t share the same physical location. No problem, everyone has access to a good computer with reliable and fast internet access these days, right? Well, no… not at all! And we shouldn’t expect it, otherwise we are sure to have problems in the long run (thank you Victor and Roque for the help).
So, what can we do to easy pair programming sessions? I think it all boils
down to a workflow that uses the minimum required internet access and processing
power. This currently means to me that we should use the command line as much as
possible. So, how can we achieve this?
The tools
tmate
tmate is a fork of tmux that
allows instant terminal sharing. It is pretty easy to install on OSX or similar
systems and can coexist with tmux on the same system. After installing we can
simple type tmate in our terminal and everything will be set up for us.
Let’s see an example:
$ tmate
$ tmate show-messages
[tmate] Connecting to ssh.tmate.io...
[tmate] Note: clear your terminal before sharing readonly access
[tmate] web session read only: https://tmate.io/t/ro-AbCdE
[tmate] ssh session read only: ssh abcde@ny2.tmate.io
[tmate] web session: https://tmate.io/t/aBcDe
[tmate] ssh session: ssh EdCbA@ny2.tmate.io
What I normally do is share the ssh session or ssh read only session,
so after typing ssh EdCbA@ny2.tmate.io the other person will be able
to see and access our terminal session. Easy, right?
We can see that there is also an https link, so it is an easier entry
point for people not familiar with the command line.
It is important to mention that we could achieve this with tmux also, but
tmate is easier for people with no experience since there is practically
no setup involved.
Vim
Vim is a text editor that enables efficient text editing. People might argue that it is a complex editor and that the learning curve is too steep, but I have found that even people with no experience can learn the basic usage and be productive in pair programming sessions with the right guidance.
If both people are power users, try to not use a configuration that change Vim’s expected behavior. For example, changing your leader key to comma.
Other tools
So, the goal is to use the command line as much as possible, that being said
sometimes we need to check something up on our browser and this disrupts the
pair programming session. For this example we could use w3m
so both people can see the web page directly on the terminal.
Normally I also use Skype or Google Hangout for voice, but it is not something required though.
And that’s it! It is a really simple workflow and I think this is the beauty of it. Do you have a different workflow that works for you? I would be glad to hear about it, just send me an email or leave a message on twitter!
See you in the next post!