Chapter 4
Collaborating with Shared Screens

The terminal-based environment we’ve created is great, but it won’t help us view a mobile device emulator, debug JavaScript in a browser, tweak web-page layouts using CSS, or design application graphics. Many pair-programming tasks are possible only when viewing your partner’s screen, and unless your application only interfaces with other software, those tasks are unavoidable.

Despite the essential role of screen sharing in pair programming, many developers dread it because of the terrible latency and high bandwidth requirements of most clients. But you’ll learn how to use techniques that are responsive, consume very little bandwidth, work on all platforms, and still allow for two-way control.

That’s not to say we should get rid of the terminal-based environment. Many programmers use tmux in conjunction with screen sharing. Ultimately, no matter what platform we use or what kind of application we’re building, at some point we will need to share our screen. Let’s discuss how to do it.