February 2, 2019
I recently started using LiveShare extension to VSCode and must say it works like a charm. I’ve always been a linux user and didn’t like Microsoft for its opinion about open source but that has changed in the last years and must admit: they’re doing great job building the best IDEs for developers. Visual Studio has been always ahead of other IDEs in terms of features and developer-friendly interface.
VSCode gained popularity among web developers and probably is one of the most popular IDEs these days. If you love pair programming like me, you should give LiveShare extension a try:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/liveshare/
You will need a github or Microsoft account to authenticate and once it’s done you’ll get a sharable link that should be open by other developers (who also need to install that extension).
You can control access to your IDE, for instance you won’t have access to the VSCode’s console by default. You will see your team mate’s cursor jumping on the screen but everyone can work independely on different files of the project.
There’s also an extension pack to LiveShare which includes voice communication but I haven’t tried that yet and actually I prefer using a dedicated application for that.