GitHub had yesterday announced a new feature for its ‘Atom’ text editor. Known as ‘Teletype for Atom,’ it lets you team up with fellow developers on a project to work on the shared code.
GitHub is a popular online versioning repository hosting system. Three years ago, it had launched ‘Atom’ text editor as a free and open-source text and source code editor for coders working on Windows, macOS, or Linux platforms.
Now, this new Teletype feature allows developers to share their workspace with team members, write or edit code together simultaneously, and collaborate on code in real time, thereby sharing knowledge and producing quality software.
“Writing code with another programmer is a great way to absorb knowledge, challenge yourself with new perspectives, and ultimately write better software,” Nathan Sobo, an Atom team member, wrote in a post.
Developers can create a Teletype session from Atom and share this with online collaborators. Once a team member joins the same session on Atom, it will be able to stream the content of user with collaborators.
“Teletype introduces the concept of real-time “portals” for sharing workspaces. When a host opens a portal, their active tab becomes a shared workspace. There, invited collaborators can join in and make edits in real time. As the host moves between files, collaborators follow along with the active tab automatically,” reads the blogpost on the teletype.
The feature doesn’t include a chat or voice conference system, so people who want to converse about the work that they are doing will have to reach for an outside service, like Google Hangouts or Skype. The Teletype feature is still in beta stage and there are chances of few more functionalities being added in the coming days to make collaboration easier.
The company notes that your data is piped through encrypted peer-to-peer connections, so you shouldn’t have to worry about anyone snooping on your code.
With this introduction of Teletype and the recently-added integration with Git and GitHub, Atom is shaping up to be a pretty good choice for developers of various disciplines.
For those interested in trying out ‘Teletype for Atom,’ can install it from here, along with the Teletype package from this page.
