Pair programming with JetBrains tools? It’s easy now!
Have you ever wanted to use your JetBrains tools for pair programming? Intellij IDEA has been with us for quite a long time and there wasn’t any official real time code sharing feature. Today it is possible. I would like to quickly present to you an useful plugin for pair programming.
It is made by JetBrains for JetBrains fans, and it’s name is “Code with me”.
Currently it is in EAP stage but i can assure you that it works perfectly!
INSTALLATION
Code with me plugin can be installed from Settings -> Plugins in JetBrains tools.
Requirements are:
- Host: IntelliJ IDEA License + IntelliJ IDEA 2020.2.1+ version
- Guest: Browser
After installation and IDE restart, you will find new options, right next to the Run icon.
After enabling the access the new window will popup with little remainder about sharing the link only with people you trust.
After that you can share the link that you already have in your clipboard (plugin copied it for you).
SHARING
Send the link and tell someone to open the link in the browser. Guests will see something like this. If a guest has opened IDE then Intellij Client download progress will be seen in the bottom of IDE.
After a while popup with fingerprint info will show up.
Final decision belong to the HOST. Popup will show up with a message that some person is trying to connect to the session. If the host is sure that it is the trusted person.
Access granted? Voeila!
PERFORMANCE
Is it fast? Definitely. If you ever had a chance to collaborate on documents using google docs app then you can be sure that this connection works faster ❤
And that’s it! Whole process of installation, sharing, downloading and establishing the connection takes no more than 3 minutes. If you are over installation and downloading part then you will do it probably in no more than 1 minute.
What about privacy?
I bet the plugin sends my data to the JetBrains servers and they can have access to every change, source files and debugging session.
Beeep! Wrong. All host files are stored locally on the host station. Data is indeed being sent to JetBrains servers but it is fully end to end encrypted.
This means that only the host and guests are aware of what the state of development is. JetBrains is not able to be in possession of what is being sent and what it is stored on both ends of the session.
Is it compatible with other JetBrains products?
Of course. For the day of the article being published the plugin is compatible with IntelliJ IDEA, AppCode, CLion, GoLand, PhpStorm, PyCharm, RubyMine and WebStorm.
I highly encourage you to try that tool as it can become very powerful in the right hands :). You definitely won’t regret it.
Please let me know in the comments below how you use such tools and whether you use them in your daily work in your company.
Links:
If you want know what pair programming is then please visit:
https://martinfowler.com/articles/on-pair-programming.html
“Code With Me” FAQ:
https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/faq-about-code-with-me.html
Other tools for JetBrains tools “CodeTogether”:
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/14225-codetogether
