Code Collaboration Tools Simplify Development
The right code collaboration tools will help your team work closely together to create high-quality products. They help teams communicate and collaborate in real-time, even if team members are working in locations around the globe.
What Is a Code Collaboration Tool?
A code collaboration tool is a software program that facilitates more efficient collaboration between developers who are working on the same codebase or project. The term “code collaboration tool” is broad and encompasses a range of tool types, including:
Version Control Systems
Version control systems, like Perforce Helix Core and Git, track changes to and manage collaboration on code and other digital assets.
IDEs (Integrated Development Environments)
These tools provide an interface for multiple aspects of developing code, from writing and editing it to debugging. Some offer live code collaboration features, and some integrate with version control systems. Examples of IDEs include Visual Studio and IntelliJ.
Code Review Tools
These tools, like Helix Swarm and CodeCollaborator, allow developers to review code more easily for bugs and errors.
Project Management Tools
For developers, these include backlog and task tracking tools. They help developers understand what they are being tasked with developing and when it needs to be ready.
Communication Tools
These, at the most basic level, give developers a place to talk while collaborating on code. Additionally, code review comments can be pushed to communication tools like Slack.
Testing Tools
Testing tools, such as static code analysis, ensure your code complies with your organization’s coding practices or adheres to industry regulations. Testing tools can allow multiple developers to work on the same codebase without worrying about individual coding styles.
All of these tools are designed to improve efficiency in the development of large, multi-contributor projects. Without them, team members are much more likely to duplicate efforts or run into conflicts when merging code changes.
Why Code Collaboration Tools Are Important
Code collaboration tools are a necessity for any organization that has multiple developers working on the same codebase. They are important for the following reasons:
Unite Your Team with a Single Source of Truth
Everyone needs to know what files they’re working on, who has modified them (and when), and what type of changes were made. In development, using version control is the best way to ensure your team has a single source of truth — i.e. everyone is working with the same data. Helix Core, version control by Perforce, unites your entire team, serving as a single source of truth for your source code and all other digital assets.
If your team uses a mix of version control systems, it can be difficult to maintain visibility. A single project could have multiple repositories of the same type (like Git, SVN, or Mercurial) — or on the rare occasion even multiple repositories of differing types. You need a way to bring these repositories together in one spot so your team can collaborate better.
Helix TeamHub provides this single source of truth in these cases. It brings multiple repositories (of the same type or differing types) into a consolidated view.
This makes it easy to ensure changes to code in multiple repositories are reviewed prior to merging. And you can group commits together and gate your merges by requiring approvals or builds to pass. This helps you manage and trace dependencies across the codebase.
With Helix TeamHub, your developers will be able to stay in sync and work together more efficiently. They will get faster initial checkouts and updates, no matter where they are located. As an added bonus: if you’re using Helix TeamHub alongside Helix Core, where your Git code is stored in Helix Core, you can even set up “multi-repo code reviews” so that changes across repos can be approved/rejected as an atomic set.
Streamline Code Reviews
Successful code reviews are collaborative. But it isn’t always easy to share code and make comments. Plus, there can be delays in the process. You need to make it easier to share code and collaborate throughout the code review process.
Helix Swarm, a free code review tool you can add to Helix Core, unites teams and adds clarity to the code review process thanks to a number of features, including:
- Comment threading. Helix Swarm lets you add threaded comments inline with code.
- Review dashboard. This lets you monitor which reviews are complete or still in progress.
- Secure access. Make code and assets available only to team members who need them.
- CI/CD Integrations. Helix Swarm integrates with Jenkins, so you can get immediate feedback and deploy your code all in one spot.
Integrate Your Tools
So many tools are used in development today. And the more they’re integrated, the easier it is for your team to collaborate and stay on task. Your team needs to share code, integrate open source and other libraries into the product, and discuss ways of coding, building, integrating, and deploying.
Perforce code collaboration tools like Helix Core, Helix Swarm, Helix Plan (formerly Hansoft), and Helix TeamHub integrate with the tools your team is already using, letting your team keep their focus on development and off of their tools. Our developer collaboration tools integrate with:
- Story and issue tracking like Jira.
- Build runners like Jenkins.
- Messaging solutions like Slack.
- And more. See all integrations.
Code Collaboration Tools From Perforce
Bring your team together with the right code collaboration tools. As a leader in DevOps, Perforce offers some of the best developer collaboration tools.