

Ask HN: Would you use a cloud based IDE to develop and deploy websites? - jvaill

I'm currently working on a cloud based IDE. The ultimate goal is to have a Coda like inspired editor in the cloud with everything from built-in source control to FTP support. What do you think? Would you use this?
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Detrus
Are you thinking something like Mozilla's Bespin? I would use Bespin if it was
polished, it's open source too.

I'm not concerned about the difference between cloud based or desktop based as
far as storage. We're backing up everything to github, dropbox anyway, it
would be nice to have local storage as well obviously.

The real difference between Bespin and TextMate, Espresso, Coda is
performance. Text editors better be fast, Bespin is not there yet. Maybe it's
hard to get good performance with HTML5 for this, but the example of TextMate,
where people begged for a Windows port, shows it might be worth it. Relying on
OS makers to keep improving OS developer APIs is a bad idea, everyone is
focusing on light mobile OSs and browsers. It's sad to see great desktop apps
become abandonware.

Source control GUI for github, FTP, easy deployment to various cloud services
that support various languages, VMs would be nice. More importantly, adding
features through plugin systems should be a snap. I had this idea where code
can be organized in many different ways. CommandFactory belongs to Commands
and Factories, but it becomes annoying to browse through deeply nested
folders. Code should be organized by tags, not folders. Code inside a file
could get tags too, so you can click those instead of scrolling. Don't know if
today's IDEs could support this, but the plugin systems seem too complicated
anyway.

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jvaill
Thanks for the comment, appreciate it.

I've tried Bespin, they've refreshed it and most of the features that made it
awesome are now gone (for the time being). As nice as the editor is, I don't
really have much faith in the project anymore. The problem (and also aspect
that makes it good) with Bespin is that it uses the HTML5 canvas element. Slow
as hell but it's only going to get faster.

I know what you're saying about speed. The goal with my editor since day one
was to have it as speedy as possible. I won't settle for mild slowdowns under
5000 lines on a netbook. This is unacceptable considering it is a big portion
of the market.

I like the tagging system, it's pretty innovative but I don't think anything
else is ready for it yet. Plugins are a good idea too. Everyone likes to write
code in their one way.

Thanks once again... :-)

~~~
mishmash
I would echo the comment on performance with your app and Bespin. I mainly use
TextMate and Xcode and they both still have incredibly annoying delays when
syntax-coloring largish docs - and that's running native Obj-C/C on a 2.8GHz
C2D desktop.

So although I wish you luck and am hopeful that we will perhaps one day have a
usable cloud-based IDE, still kind of doubtful that it can happen with current
JS engines.

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solsenNet
Cloud based IDE's will happen. But unless you have a unique angle on the
execution of that code, you will be entering a very difficult arena.

This is a "Class A" problem, and big players are going to spend a lot of bucks
in this field. As indicated by mozilla working for years on this product
already. So I would say be prepared to go big if you really want to address
this need. This isn't really a product for a small lifestyle company.

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konad
People - please stop using FTP

