Almost everybody is on WhatsApp. Almost every mobile platform has WhatsApp. But WhatsApp is not readily available on PC, nor on Mac and neither Linux. It may also cost money.
You can try Hangouts. For it has desktop and mobile support. You can tell the last read message of each member. There is also video calling and screen sharing! But the interface is too clunky - not conducive for reading a lot of messages at once.
Therefore, you should Slack.
Slack allows for channel based messaging, so you can separate your front end development and back end development discussions cleanly.
It supports emoji too, plus Markdown, so you can write code in monospaced font. You can also mention (@) one another in your messages.
There are numerous integrations available, including Hangouts. Your repository commits can be pushed to a channel in Slack too, alerting you of updates via push notifications instead of email.
Of course, it is available as a web app in the browser and as native apps for the popular mobile OSes. Plus the interface is sleek and very usable.
I have been using this invaluable new fancy tool for the final project; still really impressive thus far!
Previously WhatsApp was used mainly for group work, as well as during Assignment 2, and for a little bit with Team Meinv during Assignment 3. Hangouts actually became my preference during the beginning of this semester, where it was used with Stickats during Assignment 1 and with my CS2103T group. Junhao introduced Slack during Assignment 3, and thereafter I firmly believe that this should be the choice of communication for software development.
There seems to be HipChat and PieThis as alternatives. Just anything but WhatsApp, or worse still, LINE...
No comments:
Post a Comment