Using Teams to develop and document code
Teams is also a tool for developers, providing a place to collaborate around code. Up till now, one key feature was missing. Despite Markdown-based formatting, there was no way to use Teams as a place to share code. That gap has now been filled, and it’s possible to paste formatted code blocks into Teams, complete with syntax highlighting. Code blocks can be converted into Loop components, so you can collaborate in real time on a section of code. It should work well for reviews or debugging. Once the code has been agreed on, simply copy it back into your IDE or code editor.
Another interesting developer feature is support for Mermaid, a JavaScript-based language that allows you to quickly add charts and diagrams. Again, this can be used collaboratively, enabling architects and other development team members to dynamically document code snippets, showing how they interact and what functionality they offer. Mermaid is a good match for Teams’ existing Markdown support as it uses a similar formatting language to create visual content.
Mermaid is an interesting open source tool that offers a quick way to add diagrams to a primarily text-based tool. You can use it to create many different types of software engineering diagrams, allowing you to use your Teams environment to collaboratively build documentation alongside code, quickly generating flowcharts, class diagrams, user journeys, and even entity diagrams. All you need to do is write a description of the diagram you’re creating, helping other members of your team understand the code you’re working on.
