Visual Studio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) created by Microsoft that is used to develop all kind of applications including Desktop, Web and Mobile. We also have a light IDE called Visual Studio Code: on one hand, it is limited, but on the other hand it is really flexible and extensible. Both IDEs support this feature called Live Share, which is integrated in the regular version and works as an extension in Visual Studio Code. With Live Share, you can work on the same project at the same time with your colleagues. This is not just limited to coding on the same page, but also includes debugging together, sharing terminal (command line) and servers (localhost).  In the last Microsoft Build event (link to previous blog post) a new feature was announced: audio calls.  

Currently, the most used practice in companies outside of this new feature is to share your screen in a voice call, which works well for certain onboarding processes like showing how work is organised. However, it is not interactive since there is just one person in charge of making changes in the projects and, therefore, less suitable for getting a new team member involved in a new codebase. With Visual Studio Live Share, all of the attendees are able to modify the documents. Moreover, if you don’t have Visual Studio installed, you can still share your session since it is compatible with Visual Studio Codespaces, which works in the Azure cloud and can be used from the browser. 

Do you have a new mate in your company? You can work together for the first week, it a very effective way to show how your work is and also, introduce yourself since you can do audio calls now.