The single best collaboration tool for developers? Unix screen. Try asking which screen at your Linux or Mac OS X commandline and you’re almost sure to find the utility preinstalled. Then check out the article by Phil Hollenbeck at linux.com or the post by Ayman Hourieh to get started.

UNIX hacks know screen as the program that keeps your ssh session logged in on a box even if you disconnect at the office, drive home, and reconnect. What’s less widely known are the magic :multiuser on and - S options that turn screen into the perfect extreme programming tool. Start screen the right way at your offices in Austin and then your buddies in Dallas, Phoenix and San Francisco can all log in to the same box and see, hear and type the exact same stuff you can in exactly the same screen sessions. Add skype (or a high-quality audio conference call) and it’s absolutely as good as everybody being in the same room to hack out some stuff.

Technical details: the trick in making screen perform collaboratively is getting the thing set up the first time. Check Hollenbeck’s article, above, for the details. After initial config the user experience goes something like this — log in, start a named screen session with something like screen -S collab, turn multiuser mode on, and then add users with :acladd ben, :acladd eddy, :acladd roy. You’ve now got a multiuser screen session up and running that ben, eddy and roy can join with by logging into the same box and typing screen -x collab.

Instant developer collaboration. Like VNC? Yes. But 100% UNIX, 100% free and 100% already installed on your box.

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