Re:Ask HN: Remote Developers, what tools/apps you wish you h...
by sdtsui on Monday February 06, 2017 @06:24AM
(#13578481)
Neat-o, thanks for sharing! I can see why you'd be happy with hangouts, it does get the job done.
For us, where everyone is remote (I haven't seen my team's faces for over 6 months), the marginal utility of a tool's delightfulness/stability is quite high. Maybe we're just picky. :)
Our hangout usage is mostly for meetings, which are just check-ins and planning meetings. Typically during the course of a meeting several people will briefly screenshare what they're working on, and a typical meeting involves multiple time-zones and states (although we're all US-based).
Sometimes pairing is done using hangouts, which isn't the best solution, but also isn't overly inhibiting. We are a small company, but > 15 developers.
I've never wanted to drive the coworker's screen, however I could see how that could be useful in many cases.
I'm not particularly thrilled with hangouts, in the same way I'm not particularly thrilled with, say, ssh--but it has always gotten the job done and allowed me to share my screen with others painlessly.