Is there any IDE or Source Control System inspired by Google Docs collaborative mode?

Question

Google Docs (formely Writely) has implemented a collaborative mode where 2 users can edit the same document at the same time. This idea could be extended to programming through:

1. A collaborative online IDE with Code Editor, Compiler/Linker, Source Control integrated
2. Where each user can checkout lines of codes instead of files
3. Where each user can watch a specific user's actions (for pair programming)

Is there any tool like that? If not, do you believe that, in the near future, there will be?

Answer 1

I believe that this is one of the goals of bespin.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Bespin/DesignDocs/Collaboration

Image from: http://ajaxian.com/archives/gwt-team-waves-goodbye-to-annoying-question-its-the-api-stupid

Answer 2

On Mac OS X there is a text editor called SubEthaEdit that did that and that's the one I tried when I was using a Mac.

Gobby seems to be the only comparable desktop client, but it still lacks the features that SubEthaEdit has.

At best both editors are simply text editors that do not have version control or any of the other features mentioned. I think that there really isn't a need for all those things because the tools we have now are sufficient. We don't really need to have a tool to check out lines of code because we can just merge the same file two developers are working on. We don't need a huge collaborative editor/IDE because Gobby and SubEthaEdit are enough when used with the other existing tools.

Answer 3

Eclipse has a feature named 'Cola - Real-time shared editing':

• screencast
• usage instructions

It does not have all the bells and whistles yet but I find it is a good add-on to a very powerful development platform.

Answer 4

It would be a good move for Google to supply a version control system. It could be a service that mimics systems such as TFS or Cola - Real-time shared editing'. I'm sure Google would have a lot to contribute to the software development tools market.