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Cloud PHP Programming Python Ruby Software

Ask Slashdot: What Are Your Experiences With Online IDEs For Web Development? 168

Qbertino writes: I'm toying with the thought of moving my web development (PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript with perhaps a little Python and Ruby thrown in) into the cloud. The upsides I expect would be: 1) No syncing hassles across machines. 2) No installation of toolchains to get working or back to work — a browser and a connection is all that would be required. 3) Easy teamwork. 4) Easy deployment. 5) A move to Chrome OS for ultra-cheap laptop goodness would become realistic.

Is this doable/feasible? What are your experiences? Note, this would be for professional web development, not hobbyist stuff. Serious interactive JS, non-trivial PHP/LAMP development, etc. Has anyone have real world experience doing something like this? Maybe even experience with moving to a completely web-centric environment with Chrome OS? What have you learned? What would you recommend? How has it impacted your productivity and what do you miss from the native pipelines? What keeps you in the cloud, and enables you to stay there? Are you working "totally cloud" with a team and if so, how does it work out/feel? Does it make sense? As for concrete solutions, I'm eyeing Cloud9, CodeAnywhere, CodeEnvy but also semi-FOSS stuff like NeutronDrive. Anything you would recommend for real world productivity? Have you tried this and moved back? If so, what are your experiences and what would need to be improved to make it worthwhile? Thanks for any insights.
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Ask Slashdot: What Are Your Experiences With Online IDEs For Web Development?

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Just stick with text editors... or be forever dependant on you web based IDE.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      oh ok, grandpa. time for your nap.

      seriously, it's so odd that people into computers are so "stuck in their ways" and cling to old technology.

      • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

        When it ain't broke, why "fix" it? What boggles me is that everyone sees something new and thinks "improvement". If what you have does 90% of what you need 99% of the time..... how much change and overhead is justified to fill that gap?

        I want my code on local storage, doesn't matter what I am doing. I want the tools I use to update my code on local storage as well. I care less about whether I can fully test locally. I care a lot less about wiz-bang editor features.

        IDEs are nice, but, syntax hilighting and c

        • What cracks me up are the supposed benefits. Perfect for people who already got all those benefits from OOP, then from XP, then from Agile, etc. The listed benefits are exactly the things it actually sucks at.

          "Syncing is easy... because you're not allowed to do it, you just twiddle your thumbs until the network traffic resumes. Easy-peasy, you're welcome." Uhm, no. I'm old enough to have lived that. Thin clients were good, because thick clients were out of our price range, and allowed us to share a larger s

          • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

            > My second thought is, "do they know that managing a private cloud configuration is harder than managing a workstation, and generally requires sysadmin skills?"

            But that is the whole point....since its offered to you as a service, you don't need any of that. They want to lock you in to trusting them to do all that work competently and to respect the privacy of your data, and trusting them to not go under/shut their servers off tomorrow.

            Its all about lock-in, in the name of providing convenience.

            • Right, but the "as a service" case is mostly a fail. Anybody old enough to have used thin clients can understand this.

              Once the service you're using is unusable for a couple days because some script kiddie decided to DDoS it, then you'll find out you need your own cloud to work in the cloud.

              They want to lock you in, but they can't actually keep you there. Cloud services will be around "forever," but not every use case will outlast the buzzword phase. For companies that paint themselves into a corner with thi

          • " A cheap tablet computer has enough processing power for software development now. "

            True. The iPad3 was the first tablet to be faster than a Cray X/MP which was the machine I had wet dreams about when I was a student.
            You really do have a supercomputer in your pocket.

        • HTML5 supports local storage, right? So in theory all of your local storage requirements can be met with a web-based development environment. Whether any of the existing web-based IDEs actually have that fully and seamlessly implemented, I have no idea.

          But to me, there is no killer feature here. The closest thing to killer feature is nearly instant developer environment replacement. If my kids spill a drink on my work laptop or it's stolen, if I have a recent full disk image backup it will take me a few days to get back up and running. I have to buy the same hardware, and then put the backup image on the storage, and then I'm back to work. If I don't have a recent full disk image backup then I have to buy some kind of replacement and spend another day getting it ready. With a fully web-based IDE the loss of hardware is a ten minute annoyance - just boot up any other machine with a web browser, log back in, get back to work.
          • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

            > But to me, there is no killer feature here. The closest thing to killer feature is nearly instant developer environment replacement.

            Exactly, and....big whoop. Oh wow you saved time...um on average once every couple of years per dev?
            90% of this issue is already solved by using revision control with a remote repository. Now all you need is to reinstall your dev tools and clone a repo....at most you lost back to your last push.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I would agree with the web based editor being suck squared, but sometime using a terminal for everything because "I hatez them GUI thingz" is bull.
          And yes, I have someone working like that with me. His productivity is...problematic.

      • Sorry, Cowherd, you gotta log in to use the "grandpa" line around here. Get to back of the line, pokey.

        • by iceaxe ( 18903 )

          Sorry, Cowherd, you gotta log in to use the "grandpa" line around here. Get to back of the line, pokey.

          Yer dern tootin'. Besides, it takes us old folks a while to get our clay tablets out to start cuneiforming our responses.

    • Once you start using an IDE forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will.

      Hrmmmm.

    • by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

      IDE's were nice when they were optional. Combining a text editor, a make facility and a debugger in a nicely integrated package does make life a little easier. The problem is that IDE's enable complexity - and without a good reason, complexity is a bad thing. IDE's have enabled the migration from comprehensible programs to micro services with myriad triggers tied to tidbits of code. And in the case of web apps, those tidbits are divided between CSS, JavaScript, tons of JavaScript libraries, and whatever

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      A well designed IDE can be a good learning environment. A poor one is much worse than a text editor, and can leave you feeling trapped.

      FWIW, back when I used FOXPRO (before MS bought it) they had a good IDE, so there is(was) an existence proof.

      OTOH, even if you know the language backwards and forwards, some purposes can benefit from an IDE. E.g., for importing graphics or sounds. But again, a poorly designed IDE is worse than not having any at all.

      The problem is that most IDE designers have the wrong ide

  • no (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:49PM (#51366505) Journal

    A move to Chrome OS for ultra-cheap laptop goodness would become realistic.

    That sounds like a cruel thing to inflict on your developers. Especially since it prevents them from running a local backend server on their own machine. Annoying.

    • You can run Linux apps on ChromeOS in "Developer Mode".
    • Not just that, a cheap Chrome laptop is also likely to have a chicklet keyboard, and low-res screen. These are devices for consuming media, and light typing, not for software development.
      • Right. The only Chrome OS developer environment that might make sense with the right web IDE is one of Google's Chromebook Pixel machines.
    • Exactly what I was thinking. Hiring skilled people and paying them a reasonable salary to get work done for you only to handicap them with a terrible working environment is just silly. Qbertino really needs to read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/... [joelonsoftware.com] and think about the impact of giving his developers an ultra-cheap environment. Heck, go to the library and check out Peopleware as well. The library is even cheaper than ultra-cheap and a thoughtful read through that book will help him use his resources more

      • Heck, go to the library and check out Peopleware as well. The library is even cheaper than ultra-cheap and a thoughtful read through that book will help him use his resources more effectively.

        And the OP is nothing if not cheap.

  • by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:50PM (#51366511)

    I've played with a bunch of them. Cloud9 was my favorite of them, but I ran into challenges when I wanted to play experiment with AngularJS. I ended up preferring to work with Brackets and pointing it at a Google Drive folder. Obviously, I'm not a professional developer. I just experiment, play, learn, and write a web app on occasion. Others in this thread will likely have better advice.

  • by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M ( 4212163 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:50PM (#51366513)

    I've switched to SATA years ago.

  • Too slow (Score:3, Informative)

    by citricshooter ( 159349 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:52PM (#51366535)
    I spent some time with Cloud9 and although it was generally usable, it was just unresponsive enough as to be annoying. Also, I prefer a standalone machine so if I don't have any wifi access, I can still work. Recent plane trips come to mind as an example.
  • These days I'm moving away from the cloud by storing my data on the local file server. The cloud requires an available connection to the Internet. Sometimes that connection is really fast or really slow on a good day.
  • No (Score:2, Redundant)

    Because cloud.
  • Not great... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Puckmarin ( 4430067 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:55PM (#51366583)
    I have yet to find one that could totally replace my desktop/laptop. Cloud9 and Nitrous are probably the best of the bunch. Both offer a nice IDE and desktop synch. However, you'll always sacrifice speed/performance and ease of use for convenience, even at the highest paid tier of service. When I used Cloud9 and Nitrous they were considerably slower than development on a desktop/laptop. Likewise, things always just seemed more difficult. If I were going to use a cloud IDE again I'd invest in server space at someplace like Digital Ocean and install the open source version of Cloud 9 (or a similar app) on the server to create my own personalized cloud service.
  • Let's see. So I'm working hellish hours on project X which I hope will make me a billion dollars one day... But I'm going to give all the code to a third party to scan and peruse all they want because I can't take the time to manage my own local IDE. No FREAKING way.
    • by ledow ( 319597 )

      It doesn't have to be a service, though, doe sit?

      It could be something you put in-house and thus can access via a HTTPS site from anywhere. Be able to work from home without needing specialist tools installed, and utilize the power of your servers to do, e.g. distcc, rather than your workstation.

      I'd quite like an "OwnCloud" version of Eclipse. Then I could quite literally log on and code from anywhere without needing to replicate what is quite a complicated multi-platform, multi-language, highly integrate

      • Ok, yes that I could see the use of. Although I can't see myself ever being to stand the lag time to draw the gui. I suppose if it was some sort of java applet that loaded once and then ran locally it could be ok. But I use Thunderbird in favor of web email clients as it is, because I can't stand web clients. No matter how well they are implemented, you always end up being limited by html.
      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        It's one of those scenarios where a virtual desktop infrastructure would serve the need most appropriately.

        BTW, at last check I preferred seafile over owncloud, though I would wonder if owncloud has improved enough over the year to rethink that.

        • OwnCloud has improved a lot over the last little while. I'm a solo developer and even use it to sync my code between machines so far with no issues though setting up a proper git repo is on my list of things I would like to do.
          • by Junta ( 36770 )

            My problem was mostly limitations around non-admin people needing to nag me for a lot of stuff that under seafile they could do for themselves. Like creating their own groups and such (which I might have missed something, but seafile was more straightforward).

            Of course, Seafile's LDAP support won't do paged queries, which is a pain. And the developers seem clueless or holding back for their commercial version...

  • a git repo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by s1d3track3D ( 1504503 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @01:03PM (#51366653)
    • 1) No syncing hassles across machines.
    • - git repo
    • 2) a. No installation of toolchains to get working or back to work - tool chains?
    • - There are many 'one click' instant LAMP/MEAN stacks for every platform.
    • b. a browser and a connection is all that would be required.
    • - For web development that's always a requirement.
    • 3) Easy teamwork.
    • - git
    • 4) Easy deployment.
    • - many robust deployment solutions push from a git repo
    • 5) A move to Chrome OS for ultra-cheap laptop goodness would become realistic.
    • - Sure, that will be a big selling point for all prospective developers your are trying to lure in...
    • git doesn't sync continuously across machines, it syncs only when you commit. If you work on multiple computers (such as a laptop and a workstation), you may want to sync continuously à la Dropbox. I even know people who keep their git repo inside Dropbox -- I know, it sounds stupid.
      • If you work on multiple computers (such as a laptop and a workstation), you may want to sync continuously A la Dropbox.

        But then you get last change wins stopming changes over each other.

        I even know people who keep their git repo inside Dropbox -- I know, it sounds stupid.

        It really, truly does!

        • You probably don't understand their use case. This is a single person, working both from a workstation (when they are at work) or from a laptop (when they telecommute, or are away, or...). At any point in time they may have to leave the workstation in a hurry, and they want to resume coding on the laptop as if they were on the same computer. They don't want to commit, not even to a private branch, because when they have to leave the code may not even compile. Of course, their code needs to be in a git repo
          • OK, it't not the most terrible idea, but still seems a bit pointless.

            You probably don't understand their use case. This is a single person, working both from a workstation (when they are at work) or from a laptop (when they telecommute, or are away, or...). At any point in time they may have to leave the workstation in a hurry, and they want to resume coding on the laptop as if they were on the same computer.

            How much of a hurry? There's probably enough time to do a git commit -am unfinished && git

            • Git stashes (I believe) cannot be pushed to another computer, so they are useless for this purpose. So, as you recognize, the choice is between "remember to commit && push every time you leave the workstation, and then always rewrite history because otherwise git bisect won't work" or "install Dropbox, do nothing else and it just works(tm)". That is not what I do, but I can totally understand people going for the second option.
              • Git stashes (I believe) cannot be pushed to another computer, so they are useless for this purpose.

                Huh, I thought they could, being just another node in the tree. Looks like I was mistaken.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      • b. a browser and a connection is all that would be required.
      • - For web development that's always a requirement.

      Yeah, but the poster isn't saying that a cloud IDE would be great because it requires a browser and Internet connection; he's saying it would be great because that's all it would require.

      I agree that a SaaS IDE doesn't seem very compelling for a traditional development team using modern tools, which largely have solved the problems he's referring to. But I suppose there are some scenarios where it would be useful, e.g. a virtual, part-time team where people who work in different places contribute on an occ

  • If you become dependent on "the cloud", many, many entities have to vote - unanimously - to allow you to get your work done at any given time. And your vote doesn't count.
    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Actually your vote would count. If you said 'no', no amount of ISP, cloud, etc provider enthusiasm is going to enable you to get your work done.

  • I evaluated a few, not for very long admittedly, but found all of them to be too slow.

    Fundamentally, doing this stuff professionally means your workstation and tooling (ide or editor or whatever) needs to be an extension of you for you to be able to function efficiently and keep a good flow going. Some of this is muscle memory on keyboard layout and shortcuts, most of it (imo) is responsiveness and ui latency. If the ui cant respond faster than you notice it then it just hurts too much to create stuff ef

    • I've done some development on Koding.com, and did not find any speed or responsiveness issues (I generally work with a good Internet connection). Most of the truly interactive portion of my application was done with JavaScript in the browsers, so there I simply leverage the built-in Chrome debugger, which is great - very interactive. Communicating with the Koding shell was no different than typing in a local shell running on my machine.
  • : 1) No syncing hassles across machines.

    What do you mean by that? Syncing what?

    Source goes in source control, so that should take care of the "syncing hassles" regardless of what IDE is used. I'm unclear how online IDEs work with source control. I am trying to think of what other things you are talking about syncing.

    • He means, "make all the stuff flow over the wires on its own because I don't know how to set up git hooks, ssh, or a VPN"

  • It is free for designing.

  • No holy wars please. s/vim/$YOUREDITOR/g

    If you're using a LAMP stack mainly (which it seems you are), the option of SSH and using a command line text editor could be of interest.

    That being said, if you can create a dev environment that matches your production, why not git around? Where has this workflow failed you previously? Surely also you are developing on multiple servers for different projects, and there are things you do common to all servers?

    For my sites I use generally two git repos - one for my to

    • No need for holy wars, as an emacs user if I'm stuck editing over ssh I switch to vim.

      Of course, if I'm using a LAMP stack (or similar) then I wouldn't be developing over ssh, I'd be doing that locally and using source control and a modern deploy tool, which would use ssh under the hood. If I'm using an editor over ssh, it would imply either an emergency hotfix (eek) or a sysadmin task, and in both cases mode-based editing shines.

  • by astro ( 20275 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @01:34PM (#51366937) Homepage

    I thought everyone just worked on their production code on the live web server like I do...?

  • I used this service for awhile to see how I liked using an online IDE. Overall, it worked pretty smoothly. Some caveats:
    1. - You do have to be careful about accidentally closing a browser window/tab or hitting in the wrong place (triggers browser back button)
    2. - I felt a bit uncomfortable storing SSH credentials "in the cloud" as these are the "keys to the kingdom" for the servers I manage.
    3. - I run a local Dev server at my home office that I could not access since the "cloud" IDE initiated all SSH transactio
    • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> I felt a bit uncomfortable storing SSH credentials "in the cloud" as these are the "keys to the kingdom" for the servers I manage.

      Only a bit uncomfortable? You should NEVER put the keys to your production environment in the cloud. If something requires that, then find an alternative,

  • Do not do that (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheDarkMaster ( 1292526 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @01:44PM (#51367027)
    Simply dont. If you are intending to do code professionally then you should be worrying about the security of your code against competitors / thieves /industrial espionage, and the worst way to do this is to put your code "in the cloud". And I will not touch the point of the performance of a "cloud IDE" because others have already shown examples to exhaustion. In short: Very, very bad idea.
  • Personally I always find running something in a browser less than ideal compared to an app running locally, so my bias was a factor, but even allowing for that, all the online IDEs I found/tried were far clunkier usability-wise, far slower and obviously less secure than using something running locally.

  • However, I find with my dyslexia I just don't enough bang from them.

  • I've been dabbling with this myself lately, for multiple reasons.

    I'm currently using Cloud9 and frankly I can't tell much difference performance or feature wise (but I don't extensively use all the bells and whistles in any IDE anyway).

    Cloud9 is cool because while you can use their servers to really quickly bring up dev environments, you can also just as easily SSH into your own box (I'm using AWS with Bitnami distros) for flexibility and security. You get convenient access to the files in the IDE just like

  • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @01:55PM (#51367127) Journal

    Don't bother and here's why:

    1) No syncing hassles across machines.

    Use a decent version control system. If there are no collisions, the syncing is trivial. If there are collisions then te web based system won't help you either.

    2) No installation of toolchains to get working or back to work - a browser and a connection is all that would be required.

    Figure out what packages you need. Then type:

    sudo apt-get install a b c d e etc moar lolz hax package

    into a file and save it on your github account. Then on any new machine, grab that line and run it as root. You don't need anything more than an internet connection to do that either, and it'll install a full-strength dev system with almost on effort.

    It's generally a good idea to have this, it means you can set up a new laptop or desktop and be up and running in a few minutes.

    Plus once you're set up you don't even need an internet connection.

    3) Easy teamwork.

    How is it easier than a version control system?

    4) Easy deployment.

    Doesn't that rather depend on what's being deployed and where? Either way though, it's not hard to set up a git repo (e.g. on githup) with testing, continuous integration, automatic deployment and all that stuff.

    5) A move to Chrome OS for ultra-cheap laptop goodness would become realistic.

    Are the cheap chromebooks substantially better than the cheap modern take on netbooks with Linux installed? You can still run chrome on the latter if you like, but get the benefit of much more flexibility.

    Bear in mind that anything done in a web browser takes approximately 1.434762139548e+37 more CPU resoures than a corresponding native program. For example compare Atom to uh... just about anything really. If you're going to be doing "big" stuff in the browser then a weak laptop will get really annoying. For example google docs on my venerable eee 900 is now horrendous and barely usable where as LibreOffice is still fast and snappy.

    vim of course loads instantly still.

  • by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @02:20PM (#51367353)
    No matter what your profession is, you shouldn't ever try to cut corners on your every day tools. That's never a good idea. You should instead INVEST in the best tools that you need to do your job.
  • Visual Studio FTW (Score:4, Informative)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @02:21PM (#51367357)

    I know I'll get modded down for this, but usually only take web development projects that let me write in Visual Studio. Why?
    1) People who are looking for C#-based projects have MONEY (they have to to afford non-Express SQL Server) and often pay their bills on time
    2) Unit testing is easy to do...and my clients usually happily pay for a full test suite as a self-documenting quality check on my code
    3) Expectations of bleeding-edge look-and-feel are often lower, which means I spend more time on the app and less time on browser-specific rendering and Javascript BS

    For my own use (my marketing sites) I tend to build on frequently-updated web portal tools (often in PHP/JS/TS) and only do a few tweaks around the edges in a text editor like Sublime because just about all of what I need to interact with the rest of the world has already been written by somebody else.

    • by SQLGuru ( 980662 )

      Have you tried VS Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/) over Sublime? It's cross platform (Win, OSX, and Linux) and free. Plus, it recognizes your SLN solution. It's based on the same code that runs on TFS Online (it's actually a web application that runs in NWJS (formerly Node-Webkit - http://nwjs.io/ [nwjs.io]).

  • I have used PythonAnywhere for a couple of years. Obviously it's Python only (duh), but would say the experience has generally been excellent.

    The ability to use two accounts on the service, using one as a development server, and the other as a deployment one is fabulous. It's also really cheap, and the reliability and support is first rate.

    I do not work for them!

  • I moved my prototyping work (for a complex image processing application) into the cloud using Koding.com. It was easy to add custom stuff like OpenCV, and it's a huge relief to leave the system administration to others. It's great to be able pop in and get work done anywhere you happen to have access to a browser. The Koding.com guys are very responsive any time I've had tech support issues.
  • What does a decently-spec'd MBP or non-Apple equivalent and a mid-grade commercial IDE cost these days? $2k at the most?

    Even if you are hiring 18-year-olds in rural South Dakota, you are looking at $50k a year ($35k salary + other direct costs), the $2k is *nothing*. 16GB laptops, SSDs, giant screens, and huge backup arrays are close to nothing.

    Don't be that cheap guy. Don't work for that cheap guy. If you are you own boss and are the one cheaping out on your own self... look in a mirror, do a Stuart Sm

  • I mean, if you're just doing your own personal projects, that's one thing, but if you're doing real hardcore team-level website/app development where there's a significant amount of work, division of work between team members, etc. then go on AWS or wherever, set up a trac server, install git and set up a git repo that's linked to your trac server, get Eclipse, install the mylyn plugin, etc. If you want to go whole hog set up a docker container that has a copy of your web server environment in it for local

  • Why do you think ultra-cheap laptop goodness is a good thing? Whenever I've dealt with cheap laptops, they are usually slow, not very durable (random crap breaks on the case in 2 years) and generally annoying to use (keys stick, the screen resolution is tiny, the built in mouse/trackpad sucks.) As a developer, I tent to buy a high end laptop (or two) and then use it every day, carrying it around in my backpack, for three years, or more, before I have problems.

    Unless you are poor, I don't really see why poi

  • I mostly use the exact setup you're talking about. I can't really speak to the "teamwork" aspects; for that I generally use CollabEdit [slashdot.org], which is simpler for one-off collaboration. I got a Chromebook because I was planning on being in fairly impoverished areas in Central America for months or years, and I wanted a laptop that I was not going to worry about breaking. It works pretty well, all things considered. It's relatively simple to install a 'real' linux distro via crouton [github.com] and get access to all the normal linux goodies. One specific advantage to ChromeOS is that it keeps track of what apps you have installed, and if you ever have to replace the unit, you can just sit at the new one, type your login info, and in about two minutes the new machine will have exactly the same stuff the old one did.

    Having your development tools/files in the cloud means that they are inaccessible to you without an Internet connection, however, you don't need much of a net connection to be able to work: for Cloud9 there's an initial download of I believe about 1 MB for the editor, and actually editing code is possible down to a hundred bytes per second. Creating a local repo from a GitHub or Bitbucket repository is very simple, and each coding workspace gets its own little virtual machine, so you can install gems, run tests, and do anything you'd normally do. It also saves process state, so you can start (e.g.) pry, fool around with the interpreter, close the window, and the next time you start, pry will still be running. It actually saves quite a few brain cycles: you have less effort to figure out what you were doing the last time. Code completion and refactoring support exists, but is not what you would call world-class, more like SublimeEdit than intellij.

    I have been using cloud9, but I have shopped around for various online editors at times, and so far I have not found any particularly compelling reasons to switch. I do not miss setting up a new chroot or container for a new project, or worrying about syncing code between workstations. Also note that there are online IDEs which can be run on your own private server (Cloud9 among them), for a hybrid approach, and of course there's nothing wrong with emacs over ssh if it comes down to it. At this point I doubt I would go back to a "real" IDE unless required to by an employer.

  • I have tested all of them in the past. Some have moved in a direction that I don't think is right for a PHP developer. They are essentially moving to sandboxed virtual environments where they want you to develop on that virtual box.

    I have been keeping my eye on codeanywhere as I believe it is going in the right direction. However with the lack of PHP (or any language) linting, it is useless. For those of you that don't know, linting is essentially the highlighting of syntax errors in your code. I believe th

  • Cloud, schmoud.

    cPanel's code editor is my main tool!

  • Rather than using a pseudo-commercial IDE with limited functionality, you could use a free cloud based Linux machine courtesy of the Sage cloud: cloud.sagemath.com.

    The terminal they provide isn't the greatest, but with tmux and screen, plus vim, you should be able to easily create a decent multi-terminal programming environment, in addition to getting a couple of GB of free storage. Recently they have introduced a pay model under which network access costs $7/mo. This seems cheap to me. I doubt that they

  • by Jeremy Lee ( 9313 ) on Monday January 25, 2016 @11:51PM (#51371313) Homepage

    I do "cloud development" all the time. I spin up servers with ansible so they have GIT, latest source, and my login keys, and I use Eclipse/SSH with the Remote System Explorer (RSE) extension to develop, and more ansible/GIT to save the changes back to the repo and deploy to the rest of the cloud.

    I've tried docker and various other deploy systems, but most of the time what you want is a carefully versioned Debian stack install with you source slapped on top, and there's nothing hard about that once you've got your workflow sorted.

    Oh, you mean, is there a way of developing totally in a browser without local software installs to a professional standard and level of tooling?

    Um, no. Not yet. Which is a shame. There are a few specific tools, (I've written a few) but not a whole "IDE".

    (Unless as one wag suggested you count the cPanel text editor, which you really shouldn't. It tops out after about 1000 lines, for a start :-)

    I've actually attempted such a thing a few times, and the main problem is that putting a full GNU compiler on the internet is a great way to have your box burned to the ground through makefile exploits. Compilers don't like being put in sandboxes either.

  • I have tried to go the cloud route route for development with a Chromebook. (I have tried both web development and general programming using remote services.) For development, it might work five years from now, but it does not work today (for me) for professional development.

    The first problem is availability. Even the best services are not "always on." Part of this is on the service provider, part is on their service provider, and part is on your own local Internet provider. I always have deadlines for

The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

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