Weblog entry #1 for orchid
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Then next logical step is a pair-programming editor, with a chat window and compile and shell perhaps and of course an editing window.
I had lamented the lack of pair-progamming apps for linux, Mac and Win32 both have some pretty mature products for this and recently someone blogged about Gobby.
http://gobby.0x539.de/screenshots.html
Sadly no Sarge package but it is in unstable (not sure about testing) and I checked it out. Its actually quite good, more than one person can join the editing session so it would make an excellent app for tutorials and such.
One major drawback, programmers tend to LOVE their favorite editor, and even for quick lesson cannot bear to use something as less featured and customized than what they are accustomed to. Gobby falls short in this area, offering a (at least at first glance) gedit type of editor. It would be great if the program gave you an empty window and let you fill it with $EDITOR.
I have found Gnu/screen a poor-womans way around this, run screen, then run emacs, open a shell window in emacs for compiling, a scratch buffer for chat, and of course some file to edit. Enable multiuser in screen, add their name to the screen user list, let them ssh in and run screen -x orchid/
Of course you really have to trust them enough for an ssh account but screen has some basic permission commands for multiuser mode so its not really that bad. I am sure more could be done, maybe a restricted bash shell and so on. For me the point is moot as only my close friends have the time and inclination to ssh in and help me anyway :-)
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I've used screen for this in the past, one irritation is that you must rebind keys if you intend to use Screen + Emacs - otherwise "Ctrl-A" will not work as expected!
It really does depend on what you want to do though. I've found that if you have one person coding and the other simply viewing the activity it can be a useful experience. That can be setup reasonably securely with VNC.
If both of you need to code then your options are much less satisfactory - although the editor you metion seems interesting.
Steve
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It takes only a few days to get used to and I get my beloved "begining of the line"
back with C-a in bash and emacs.
escape ^]]
in your .screenrc should do it.
Oh and VNC is something I should look into as well then, thanks. There is also the ability I am told to open and emacs frame on another display. This means if you forward X over ssh, someone can view the same frame on a remote host. I might check that out too but Ive not had much experience setting up remote X.
But really a second curser mode for emacs would rock :-)
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