Show HN: Codassium - WebRTC-based video chat and code editor for interviews

http://codassium.com

by karterk • 13 years ago

88 59 13 years ago

codassium.com

karterk13• 13 years ago

First Show HN :) Any feedback greatly appreciated :)

tbeseda3• 13 years ago

Chrome asks for permission to access my camera and my mic. I allow. No mic or camera. "Loading..."

Chrome 25.0.1364.172 Macbook Pro [closed] with external 27" Thunderbolt ACD.

Hope it helps, I'm excited to try it.

karterk13• 13 years ago

Do you see any errors in the developer console? I have been testing this for a while and it did work on Chrome 25. Chrome 26 was released only last week.

Sometimes, I am not able to distinguish between a missing mic/webcam and genuine webrtc connection issues so either could be a problem.

mtgx• 13 years ago

I think the WebRTC stuff was only fully implemented in Chrome 26. Didn't you get the update for it on Mac?

Xion• 13 years ago

Cool stuff!

One suggestion: if the code wasn't changed yet, switching languages should adjust the syntax in the initial example. So the default `var foo = 'bar';` in JavaScript should become `foo = 'bar'` in Python, etc.

karterk13• 13 years ago

Thanks, will add that to my todo list!

mnicole2• 13 years ago

Really enjoying the concept of this! A few friends of mine and I do JavaScript lessons over Google Hangout right now and this would be a much preferred alternative, although it doesn't seem to allow more than two people's cams at once.

I realize this is for interviews and there'd be no reason to have this unless you were potentially testing multiple candidates at once, but it would also be useful to us if we each had our own code environments that didn't interfere with the master source, but could be public or private to the others in the room. Just an idea. :)

RobertLong• 13 years ago

I agree this would be awesome. Google hangouts has a collaborative editor app but, getting everyone set up is a hassle. This app is much easier.

karterk13• 13 years ago

I agree with you. A private editor or the ability to have tabs will be useful. The learning part did cross my mind, but I wanted to focus on a specific use-case instead of diluting the message by pitching it as a general purpose tool.

although it doesn't seem to allow more than two people's cams at once.

More than 2 people works fine for me. Is anyone else facing this issue?

bvi• 13 years ago

Is there a way to replace chat functionality with, say, images or documents? For instance, a document that the interviewer could show the candidate instead of having to send/email that document over.

karterk13• 13 years ago

Ideally, screen sharing will be nice, but we will have to wait for the proposed spec to evolve for that.

pagade• 13 years ago

I upgraded my Firefox to 23.0a1 but still it says 'Video chat is disabled because your browser does not support WebRTC'. Am I missing anything?

karterk13• 13 years ago

To be frank, I have not tested it extensively on Firefox. Will do that over the course of next week.

jiangth• 13 years ago

This look fantastic. One suggestion I would make is to have a chatbox incase both parties do not have a webcam.

johns3• 13 years ago

Even if you have a webcam a chat is still useful to share links, etc that aren't code. I'm betting a lot of people would use comments in code as an ad-hoc chat.

karterk13• 13 years ago

Totally agree with you. Wanted to get this out of the door - otherwise I tend to keep adding "one more feature".

dylanjha2• 13 years ago

Seshcode has chat https://seshcode.com

maslam• 13 years ago

Nice!

lelandbatey• 13 years ago

This is very awesome (I was talking with someone the day before last about how something like this should exist).

On a very different note: why is it that the default "tab" in so many of these online editors is just two spaces? It seems to be a thing in many online code based editors, and I don't know why. Is that a common convention for the languages that the authors of these in-browser-editors use? What's the deal? And why can't I change it to four spaces?

randall• 13 years ago

I think a lot of people use two spaces in diff communities. I prefer two, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm in these communities or what.

drivingmenuts• 13 years ago

I'm a four-space tab person, myself. Two spaces looks like a typo rather than an indent, to me.

At one time there was a movement afoot for some sort flexible tabbing (using actual tabs) but it seems to have died out.

davefp• 13 years ago

Two space indentation for me. That's pretty much the default for ruby code AFAIK.

I'm somewhat ambivalent about it though. On the one hand I find it easier to read (less scanning back and forth across the page) but on the other it is forgiving to deeply nested code.

SeanDav2• 13 years ago

wow, you guys just don't have a clue ;P

It's 3 space tabbing or go home.

(I am actually serious, about the space part, not the clue part. 2 spaces looks like a typo and 4 wastes space once you indent a couple of times. Got to be 3, although if I had to choose, 2 or 4, then definitely 4.)

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

in languages that enforce spacing 4 makes sense, but otherwise why bother with it?

larger spacing discourages pyramid code (like in python which is stylistically functional), but sometimes (eg: HTML) this is unavoidable, and 4 spaces are a nightmare

mweibel2• 13 years ago

Well, I'll be that guy then: Why are people not using tabs instead of spaces?

Really: I couldn't care less about how much spaces my team mate is using for a tab. I just know: Indent by tab, and everyone can set their settings on their own and it looks always perfectly indented.

sgk284• 13 years ago

Relevant: http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html

tl;dr; Spaces are the correct technical choice due to interop issues with TAB.

jeffling• 13 years ago

If you could combine this with runnable or something, in order to run tests, that would be great

juancaldera• 13 years ago

awesome

jpterry• 13 years ago

Myself and some friends built a very similar tool during the LAUNCH hackathon. It's a shared code editor with some github integration for saving your work, and webrtc handling the video chat. Check it out, we'd love some feedback. https://seshcode.com

smallegan• 13 years ago

Love the idea but just tried it with a buddy and we could share text but neither one of us saw the other one. We could however see ourselves.

karterk13• 13 years ago

There might still be some quirks/bugs due to stuff like firewalls and anti-virus software. I'm hoping that this becomes more polished in the future versions of Chrome and Firefox.

mattnish• 13 years ago

Nice work Codassium. I helped with Seshcode. It's great to see other people building awesome coder tools too.

karterk13• 13 years ago

Thanks :)

dylanjha2• 13 years ago

Good job. WebRTC ftw. Anyone using it for recruiting?

sandyarmstrong2• 13 years ago

Anybody know the correct about:config tweaks required to try this in Firefox 20? Or is FF 21 required?

sandyarmstrong2• 13 years ago

FF 21 update hit me and it works now.

xoail• 13 years ago

I am somehow against people expecting me to write syntactical code at job interviews. I prefer to write pseudo code, explain my thought process. Being a guy who deals with various languages throughout the day makes it hard to code everything right when someone looking over my shoulder as I tend to google now and then to get right functions/methods of achieving something. Thats just me I guess.

karterk13• 13 years ago

I work with a lot of languages too. And, this has been something which I have thought a bit about. There are jobs where polyglot skills play a big part (e.g. software consultancy), but there are also jobs which require someone to just go out and crank code. In those cases, I don't think it's wrong for someone to expect syntactical correctness.

epoxyhockey• 13 years ago

You're not the only one. I've experienced many types of interviewing: skyping, verbally coding, online code editing, in-person whiteboard coding, homework/coding tests, programming language trivia, math brain teasers, etc. The funny thing is that even when getting all of the questions "correct," they haven't ever gotten me closer to a job offer than more traditional methods.

You can tell within the first 10 seconds of your first interaction with a company if they are actually interested in hiring you, or just window shopping. The conversation starts with the HR person/hiring manager talking up their company, asking about your experience and then essentially asking you how soon you can start.

In other words, if someone doesn't already have a good idea that they want to hire you based on your resume and experience, no amount of code circus is going to move the chains forward.

pacaro• 13 years ago

Either consider treating your interviewer as "Google".

Or just write down the prototype of the function you need, tell the interviewer what you expect it to do, offer to code it up later if necessary, and use it

jdelsman• 13 years ago

This could also be a cool way to remote pair, no?

Jeremy1026• 13 years ago

Any chance of PHP syntax highlighting being added?

thecodemonkey• 13 years ago

karterk13• 13 years ago

Noted. Will add it, thanks.

lucidrains• 13 years ago

so is anyone going to attempt an in-browser skype-like clone with webrtc? i might do it if no one else does

luisbebop• 13 years ago

awesome!

emhart• 13 years ago

It occurs to me that this could actually be a very handy way to get help from more competent friends as I'm learning to code. I've had offers to review my code, but being able to do it live would be great. Great tool!

rizwan• 13 years ago

Very very cool. First feature request: Support for Objective-C syntax highlighting :)

thedangler• 13 years ago

What was used to build this? How are the languages being handled? And open source frameworks. I'm interested in the real time coding.

Show HN: Codassium - WebRTC-based video chat and code editor for interviews

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