Remote Development Practices/Tools

Question

I'm looking for some advice regarding remote development/programming and any advice that people who are currently doing this have. I'm specifically looking for what you think is/are the most effective practice or set of practices.

I think the following are important:

• Remote code reviews with a tool such as Crucible*
• Good connection for access to SVN, bug tracking tool (e.g. Jira) and wiki (e.g Confluence) for sharing progress/design rationale etc...
• Phoning in every morning for the "daily standup"
• Keep a daily diary of things done/things to do
• Use of an IM client for quick comms

Does anybody have any recommendations for other practices/changes that you would highly recommend?

Answer 1

Use a distributed version control system like Git or Mercurial. This allows you to work offline...

Answer 2

1. Software that helps people discuss and thresh out ideas together. Consider something on the lines of scriblink.
2. Also, I would suggest a good software which makes it possible to remotely log onto other developers machines -over the internet. It makes life so much easier especially when discussing / troubleshooting issues to be actually able to see in real time exactly what they are looking at
3. A good headset with a microphone and software / package that allows people to call and talk to each other instead of relying on emails / chat as they can be tedious at times.

Answer 3

I find IM to be more valuable than phone calls for quick conversations with co-workers. I'd recommend setting up a private Jabber server (via OpenFire) so that you can force SSL and not worry about eavesdropping of any company private issues. Then use Google Desktop to index your IM client transcript logs. It's super-handy to be able to find all your past conversations about a topic given just a keyword.

Answer 4

Have all developers on the team use IM. It is much faster to get answers to technical questions via IM than by a large email thread.

It is normally a good idea to set up a seperate account for your "company persona", like JoeCoder_CompanyName@Yahoo.