Caffeine can now:
- provide an IDE as a DOM element
- provide an IDE as a Chrome DevTools panel
- run headlessly in a web browser worker thread, NodeJS server worker thread, or NodeJS main thread.
We have all the components we need to connect teams of livecoders, sharing information from their IDEs as they work. What information would we like to share?
proactive conflict resolution
I’d like to share information that makes code integration easier, by spreading awareness of potential conflicts as soon as possible. Imagine, for example, that you’ve found a bug in a longstanding system method, and decide to start editing it. Before the commit of your change (which may still be days or weeks away), someone else on your team also happens to start editing that method. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that both of you are interested in changing the method?
If both of you are connected to a team network, your IDEs can notify each other when a potential conflict situation like this begins, and the two of you can resolve it through discussion. Such a feature could be vital in a team where responsibility for methods and classes is clearly and completely divided between authors.
The servers in this network can provide history services, too, acting as repositories of all the versions of methods and classes that have been committed by team members. This could aid in unit testing, sharing of works-in-progress, and deployment.
How would you use it?
How would you like to use such a system? How would your needs change when acting as a developer, or as a manager? I’m writing a specification now, and would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
thisContext 