

Ask HN: Google Chromebook - anybody using it for web development? - rtdp

I would like to know the experience if anybody has started using google chromebook for web development full time(as primary development machine not just while mobile).<p>It might be with online IDEs or a rented EC2 instance and chrombook as terminal to access it. Please share your configuration for such.<p>Thanks !
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fmstephe
I am doing web development mostly from a chromebook.

How: Previously I used the ssh found in crosh (ALT+SHIFT+T > ssh ...) but the
crosh ssh freezes if you lose your connection. The crosh will freeze for ~5
minutes before you can close your now worthless terminal tab. This happens a
lot if you are on 3G and makes ssh impossible to use. My wireless cuts out
enough to make this too frustrating to use.

Now I use secure shell from Google
(<https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/secure%20shell>). This app is
fantastic. It is very fast and you can kill it whenever you please.

I have a rented linode which I ssh into and hack away in vim. Best development
experience I have had.

I mostly use my chromebook at home not mobile. My experience is that since I
am happy in the terminal I don't need a full powered PC for development. The
chromebook is perfect for snatching an hour here and an hour there for
development, since I have a day job and a family. My 17" quad-core laptop gets
very little use these days.

I love the keyboard on my chromebook, although I miss the 'end' key almost
every day.

Problems: I only test my web-app regularly in chrome. So I tend to build up
safari and firefox css bugs over time and have to fix them in lumps.

~~~
garindra
Have you tried using Browserstack (<http://browserstack.com>) to test
different browsers directly from a browser tab? It's been very helpful to me,
and the range of the browsers that they offer is breathtaking (they offer IE,
Firefox, Chrome, Opera, iOS, Android, Opera Mini, pretty much almost
everything in both mobile and desktop platform.)

~~~
fmstephe
Thanks for the tip. I'll be trying that out tonight.

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tikhonj
Check out Ymacs[1], which is an Emacs clone written in JavaScript. If you're
already familiar with Emacs, it could be a decent substitute. If you're not
familiar with Emacs, now is a good time to learn and Ymacs is also good
because (I think) it's easy to customize in JavaScript.

[1]: <http://www.ymacs.org/>

Just something to consider as far as editors go.

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ponyous
I asked friend who bought Chromebook same question. He is also a web developer
(Mainly frontend). He said it definitely isn't like normal PC but there are
still good alternatives. He mentioned <http://shiftedit.net/>. I would paste
all e-mails but unfortunately they are slovenian. If you have any specific
question just ask.

~~~
rtdp
Does chromebook have a shell where i can ssh to my servers ? I mean, i have
seen ssh apps for chorme browser and those work with chromebook, but its still
browser.

I just need a browser- which chromebook has and a shell - just two things i
need for everyday development.

~~~
tapoxi
Pressing Ctrl-Alt-T drops you into a limited shell called Crosh, which
supports SSH connections. Google also has a native client SSH implementation
available here, the advantage being you can load many of them into different
tabs:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pnhechapfaindjhomp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo)

~~~
rtdp
crosh is what i was looking for.. awesome !!
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_OS#Shell_access>

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lrvick
I just use the new "Secure Shell Dev-channel" linked here:
[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/chromium-
hterm/4P21C89X6w4)

From there I can ssh out to one of my dev servers and hack away. It is fast,
has 256 color support, and ssh key support. Everything I need.

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ok_craig
I have one and sometimes I program personal projects on it in Cloud9. (c9.io)
I think it's pretty cool, but my actual work requires me to run eclipse and
photoshop. Plus it isn't as powerful as I'd like for full-time use. But I'm
excited to see where they go.

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kimar
You should also check out Cloud IDE (<http://cloud-ide.com>). It supports a
few different languages, integrates with Git, and lets you deploy to different
PaaS.

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thekevan
Development Tools category in the Chrome store:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/app/11-web-
devel...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/app/11-web-development)

