
Codebender is closing down - bhagman
https://codebender.cc/next-chapter
======
anc84
> We’ll keep the site on read-only mode until December 31st, 2016 at the very
> least, but our goal is to keep it up indefinitely so long as there is still
> usage (enough visits to warrant that) and we can spare the resources to
> maintain & upgrade the servers.

Nice, thank you! Please consider dumping everything under a free license at
the end so that it does not just vanish.

\-----

And some cloud snark I cannot resist making:

 _Work anywhere, your code is always there_

 _Free of charge, forever!_

Don't trust other people/companies for being always there, forever!

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Sembiance
$25,000 a month operating costs. Wow. I'd really love to see a breakdown of
these costs! It would help so many other entrepreneurs out there.

~~~
darawk
I think they're including salaries in those costs, so i'd guess it's mostly
salaries. I'd be surprised if it was more than 2k/month in hosting costs.

~~~
gregjw
I doubt hosting costs are even that high, perhaps even ~1k.

~~~
tzikis
Thankfully, I can help answer this :)

The drilldown is roughly:

* $5K Amazon + mLab hosting

* $3K extra services (intercom, mailchimp, dropbox, gmail, slack etc)

* $1K accounting/payroll overhead

* $1K all office expenses

* $15K salaries

people underestimate the cost of compilations for 10,000 people. We have
~150,000 compilations per month ;)

~~~
dogma1138
Have you considered moving the compiler to the client side? In theory you can
build a C/C++ and virtually any other language compiler in Javascript.

Security restrictions on the browser might be an issue, but i think you should
be able to store the binary output in the local storage and upload it to the
server.

~~~
tzikis
yeah but we're not crazy enough to do that :P

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cyberferret
Dang! Sorry to hear this. I had a CodeBender account a while back when I had
time to play with Arduino devices. Haven't had the time lately, but from all I
remember, it was a great online IDE for such devices.

I wish the team all the best. I didn't expect that the site would cost
~$25K/month to keep up. That is a huge cost to be borne out of their own
pockets, or from the modest investment money they had.

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kasbah
PlatformIO and their Atom based IDE might be a good alternative for people
that don't want to move to the Arduino IDE or want more support for different
development boards.

[http://platformio.org](http://platformio.org)

~~~
kejaed
I've recently started to use PlatformIO after starting a project where I have
an Arduino connected to a Raspberry Pi. The rpi is headless, and the Arduino
IDE will not work without X running (the hacks they suggested didn't work out
for me), PlatformIO has a great command line base that is working great for my
use case, flashy lights!
[https://youtu.be/ww1q248jc7Q](https://youtu.be/ww1q248jc7Q)

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tarr11
What a cool project, wish I had heard of it earlier...

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sotojuan
Is it true that makers don't "want" to pay for software or is it because
they're so used to software being free?

~~~
karmajunkie
Makers aren't interested in paying for software because they don't generally
make money off what they make. The key to any business is proving value. For
makers, they're already used to providing sweat equity, so to speak. The
thought of a little more probably isn't troubling, but paying more money (over
and above their investment in hardware and software they weren't able to get
to free) is very possibly what pushes it from hobby to detrimental to their
fiscal health.

I don't know codebenders, so I'm out on a limb here with respect to their
business. But for any business in this market, you need to figure out a way to
be some kind of Kickstarter, not just major their lives a bit easier. Enable
something they couldn't do before you came along. Help them turn their hobby
into a business, or at least make it a zero-sum game by making a tiny profit
off what they're doing. Even that isn't a guarantee but it'll put you a little
closer to the goal.

~~~
imron
> Makers aren't interested in paying for software because they don't generally
> make money off what they make

I'm not sure this is true. Makers will pay money for other tools and materials
(some of which are quite expensive) without any expectation that they'll make
that money back.

How many of their existing 10,000 monthly active users would be happy to pay
for the service?

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Philip_with1L
Wow, I really enjoyed the cloud-based features of Codebender when I was
learning Arduino. At that time, my main Mac was having repairs done and I only
had a Chromebook. Codebender IDE worked just fine on the Chromebook and I
built many projects on it. I also really enjoyed the hosted libraries feature
because I could find the files I needed quickly. It was a great platform for
those getting started with microcontrollers.

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paule89
Well Platformio just recently had to switch to make Pro Features available for
a price. [https://pioplus.com](https://pioplus.com) for anybody interested as
an alternative. the Basic plan also integrates with cloud ide's although i
haven't tested it yet.

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mankash666
That's a generous transition plan for current free users. Well done!

