Collaborative Software For Pair Programming?

DavidMatuszek writes "I will be teaching Java again this Fall. Students work in pairs, but unfortunately (after the first hour) typically not physically together. I would like to find collaborative software that is (1) dead simple to use, because that's not what the course is about, and (2) free. Google Docs would do, but students will be sharing code — plain text — not RTF or HTML or Word files. Is there such software for plain text?"

Comments

Use subversion either hosted or your own server

[ls671]

I would recommend to use Subversion. You could setup your own server but there is also hosted solutions available. I searched Google for "hosted source control" and I found this link :

http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2005/04/27/Hosted-source-control.aspx

The bonus would be to teach your student how to use version control and how to work together on the same files. Subversion (and older CVS) integrate into Eclipse and most other development environment. There is also standalone clients available if your students use a simpler editor like vi or notepad ;-))

Re:Use subversion either hosted or your own server

[SanityInAnarchy]

Seconded.

Well, actually, Git would probably be better, but that's a matter of opinion. But even with a central server, Git is faster and simpler than SVN for most things.

Re:Use subversion either hosted or your own server

[HaZardman27]

If these students are embarking upon a journey into computer science, I would say that they should get used to scraggly beards.

Re:Use subversion either hosted or your own server

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, svn is also quite complex. Compare a git merge with an svn merge.

I suppose I should say, easier to use, once you know how. The learning curve might be sharper. On the other hand, it's much easier to set up a Git server than an SVN server -- ssh access is all you need.

How about gobby?

[StylusEater]

How about gobby... http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/ ?

SubEThaEdit or some other choices...

[liquidhippo]

If you are working on Mac OS X, then SubEThaEdit is a great choice for collaborative coding. As for other options, check this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor

Eclipse DocShare (Cola)

[slim]

I initially read the question as being about real time remote collaboration.

If that's the case, there's Eclipse's DocShare plugin: http://wiki.eclipse.org/DocShare_Plugin

I haven't tried it, and I don't know how mature it is. But I watched a video presentation on it a while ago and it looked very promising.

Eclipse + ECF + XMPP (Jabber)

[jazzkat]

Eclipse offers realtime collaborative editing via XMPP and the Eclipse Communication Framework:

http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/06/eclipse-ganymede-ecf

Set up a Jabber server and away you go.

I have not tried this, so I can't speak to its quality.

Re:Etherpad

[jd]

Uck! Marketroid speak! It's not exactly new, there was a multicast-based text editor as part of the MICE suite, and there were some very nice "whiteboard" programs out there which allowed you to use OLE linking to share data between two applications real-time.

The first certainly was around in the early 1990s, the second was around in the mid 90s.

EtherPad may be "new" in that it uses HTTP as the underlying protocol, but collaborative editors are ANCIENT. The biggest problem they've faced is that so few people have used them that they have never really maintained critical mass.

Bespin?

[mpath]

There was some talk a while ago about this. I gave it a shot back then and it was a CPU-hog. With the latest strides in JavaScript (both browsers & the technology), it might be worth another look:

https://bespin.mozilla.com/