Lockstep is a package for pair programming in Emacs. It synchronizes the windows and points of two or more Emacs frames, so that a team of programmers can share an editing session. All programmers see the same buffers and live edits, and any programmer can take over the editing session.
Lockstep requires Emacs 24.
Place lockstep.el in your load-path and
(require 'lockstep)
One programmer starts an Emacs server and the other programmer(s) join
the session with emacsclient. Programmers must execute
M-x lockstep
to start synchronizing their frame.
BE CAREFUL: any programmer in the session will be able to control the Emacs process running as the user who started the Emacs server. That means that any programmer in the session can edit files and start processes as if they were that user. The best way to deal with this is to create a special account solely for the purpose of pair programming, give this account limited permissions, and let all of the programmers log in to the account.
Then the first programmer can start the session with
emacsclient -a '' -c
for a graphical Emacs, or
emacsclient -a '' -t
for an Emacs terminal session. The first programmer must also do
M-x lockstep
Then other programmers can join by running
emacsclient -a '' -c
for a graphical Emacs, or
emacsclient -a '' -t
for Emacs in a terminal, followed by
M-x lockstep
Any programmer can leave the session simply by killing their frame; the session keeps running for the other programmers.
Remote programmers will probably need to use a Emacs in a terminal, unless they have an unusually fast network connection.
-
No additional program (screen/tmux/dtach) required, just Emacs.
-
Both graphical and terminal Emacs are supported, simultaneously.
-
Two or more frames can be synchronized.
-
Synchronized frames can be mixed with unsynchronized frames in the same Emacs instance.
-
Frames can be resized independently; frames do not have to have the same size.
-
Requires Emacs 24
-
The windows and points of the frames will be synchronized, but not the window configurations. This means that windows may be arranged differently in two synchronized frames.
-
Frame minibuffers are not synchronized.
-
By default lockstep does not synchronize popups. If you want to synchronize popups, e.g., for auto-complete mode, then do
(lockstep-popup)
Trevor Jim