
The new Cloud9 development environment - ivarpruijn
https://blog.c9.io/site/blog/2014/07/announcing-the-all-new-cloud9-development-environment/
======
mAritz
Still no word on the OSS part. Last commit on master was November last year.

I like it as a service for my personal use and OSS work. But employers will
mostly not allow me to use a hosted service to edit their code; I've tried.

~~~
davb
And the Open Source distribution of Cloud9 has always been a complete
nightmare to install (in my experience). It's always felt like the OSS part
was for show ("hey, use our cloud service - it's also (sort of) OSS").

~~~
javruben
That's exactly why we're spending the extra time to polish our open source
release to make it really easy to install, fully documented, etc.

~~~
tmikaeld
Will you also include support for Docker containers?

Would love to use Cloud9, but as previous poster - the company won't allow it.

Also, will you keep it updated this time?

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joekrill
This has definitely been my favorite cloud IDE so far. I wonder if they're
going to add any of this stuff to the open source component? Last commit was
on Nov. 4, 2013, so I hope they haven't stopped that part of it.
([https://github.com/ajaxorg/cloud9](https://github.com/ajaxorg/cloud9))

~~~
fabian_cloud9
Also note that all of our work on Ace was done directly on the open source
repository <[http://github.com/ajaxorg/ace>](http://github.com/ajaxorg/ace>).

An update open source version of the IDE will follow soon.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Any idea how soon? Otherwise, how about your best guess on the probable order
of magnitude that the estimate will be? (days, weeks, months?)

~~~
javruben
weeks

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Thank you!

------
yeldarb
I find it weird that there is no mention of pricing anywhere. Even if you go
to sign up and switch to "premium" it doesn't tell you how much it's going to
cost you!

Edit: They have now added $19/mo on the Premium signup page.

~~~
zyxley
There also doesn't seem to be any clear way to make a bulk purchase for a
company instead of per individual.

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filearts
I've been using Cloud9 online and Cloud9 local for a couple years now and have
been using the beta of the current release for the last several months.

I use Cloud9IDE to build a Node.js powered website, a use-case to which this
environment is particularly well adapted. I do not need to jump through any
hoops to get interactive debugging of running node.js processes (even supports
some hot code updating).

The tool serves me particularly well as someone who works from several
computers and loves being able to pick up exactly where I left off without
being tied to a physical computer.

PS: [http://plnkr.co](http://plnkr.co) is 100% built in C9. I'm a fan, but not
at all affiliated with ajaxorg.

------
programminggeek
I've had good luck on Nitrous.io, even to the point that I'd seriously
consider getting a Chromebook instead of a MacBook to do dev on.

None of these systems truly replicates the experience and flow of using VIM
for me, but Nitrous seemed like the one that got closest for me to a really
solid dev environment/ide on the web with minimum hassle.

I haven't used Cloud 9 in a long time, so maybe this update makes it better.

~~~
filearts
I'm a user of both Nitrous and c9.

What I love about Nitrous.io is the speed of their console and the power that
seems to be allocated to each box.

What I really don't like is the editor component that they use which likes to
interfere with my coding style. When I ask it to indent certain lines it seems
to take that as a license to make its own decisions as to what the appropriate
tab stop should be.

Recent versions of CodeMirror have improved this a lot, but I remain a much
bigger fan of the ACE
([http://ace.c9.io/#nav=about](http://ace.c9.io/#nav=about)) editor component
used by (and open-sourced) the c9 team.

~~~
redidas
You should check out the zed editor. Its something you can run locally (stand-
alone or chrome app) and has a remote code component.

I've used these cloud IDEs, but haven't like any of the text editors they
supply. Zed is amazing compliment to these services.

[http://zedapp.org/features/edit-remote-
files/](http://zedapp.org/features/edit-remote-files/)

~~~
filearts
Big fan of Zef's work though I haven't tried Zed yet. Another really cool tool
is TEdit by Tim Caswell.

But before I toot their horns too loud, they are sort of competitors of mine
as the creator of Plunker. Anyway, the more the merrier as long as well all
get along and move the experience forward!

~~~
janjongboom
Funny thing that both Zef and Tim are former Cloud9 employees. They largely
build upon the same stack with VFS[0] and Ace.

[0] [https://github.com/c9/vfs](https://github.com/c9/vfs)

~~~
zef_hemel
Neither of us use VFS, but indeed we do use Ace -- it's awesome.

------
efnx
I find myself thinking the same thing about every web based IDE/editor - how
would you write a graphical application? How would you write a game? I guess
its possible to install X on the remote and then somehow stream video over the
wire but that seems like a chunky experience.

I guess that's the difference between these and traditional solutions, in a
web based IDE you can only write text based applications.

~~~
mAritz
Cloud9 actually offers SSH workspaces. (Not sure this new version has them
too)

So you can use the cloud9 IDE on your local files or on files that are on a
server of yours.

~~~
lennartcl
The new version absolutely has SSH workspaces. You can SSH into your own
machine or get an SSH box from e.g. digitalocean.com and use that with Cloud9
if you like.

------
markab21
I've been playing today with the new version, loaded in a project i have been
using in Nitrous.io and have been really happy with c9 so far.

The only complaint i have after 3-4 hours of ruby dev was performance when it
appears i’m doing anything IO related on my container. For example re-seeding
the test database, or even startup times of the test rails container.

For example right now here is a screenshot of the terminal:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8b29sn8fjabbr3/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8b29sn8fjabbr3/Screenshot%202014-07-24%2014.24.47.png)

(56 load average? Swap almost full? Yikes)

That said, the features are solid and i was able to get up and running very
quickly. Assuming the are just having some growing pains from launching the
new services today, I’m definitely going to consider switching over to c9.

 __I haven’t checked the forums to see if there is a way to re-launch my
project onto a different server to try and get better performance.

~~~
lennartcl
As you can imagine we're getting a big load of traffic on release day. Which
is fine; we have many servers hosting these containers. Some new ones are
being spawned as the traffic increases. What we're finding now, though, is
that we need to tune our load balancing logic, especially for the scenario
where many new users show up. This requires the use of some other metrics than
the "normal" scenario with many users leaving their workspace for several
hours and then coming back. Right now there is one host in particular that has
more users on it than it reasonably should. But, in short, we're working on
making it better :)

~~~
markab21
Yeah, looking at the behavior of the machine I figured something like this was
going on. It doesn't help either you ops team either having made front page on
HN =)

That said, poking around I realized I can create and edit projects on my own
server. I just spun up a 2G droplet on digital ocean and was playing around
with the SSH connector and i am beyond impressed. Ideally I'd prefer to manage
my own system resources, but being able to drop in and work on my project from
any browser on hardware that I can control, upgrade and allocate is very nice
and feels more sustainable at least for my case.

------
arkem
Not to be confused with the Cloud9 esports team:
[http://cloud9.gg](http://cloud9.gg)

~~~
duskwuff
True story: I initially thought Cloud9 (the esports team) was sponsored by
Cloud9 (the development environment). They've even both got blue cloud logos!

Maybe they should think about cutting a deal, if their thing with HyperX isn't
too exclusive?

~~~
SSLy
Hey, there is more of us...

------
louhike
The direct link to the complete article is:
[https://c9.io/site/blog/2014/07/announcing-the-all-new-
cloud...](https://c9.io/site/blog/2014/07/announcing-the-all-new-
cloud9-development-environment/#sthash.VY39Dutz.dpbs)

------
taternuts
Definitely going to be giving cloud9 another shot in the coming days. I spend
a fair amount of time (and actually pay for a small slot) on Nitrous.io's
PaaS, which I really like. The part about Nitrous.io that really, really,
really sucks is the lack of root - you have to install everything (mostly)
through "Smart Packages" which is basically just a wrapper around the install
I guess, and requires you to build it. Any project with any real dependencies
quickly becomes a pain. Some of the newer services (like terminal.com)
actually DO give you root, which I'm assuming is OK because it's running on
top of Docker? Either way, a nice front-end + root is awesome and I'll be
giving it a shot.

~~~
mastrolinux1
On the new Cloud9 version you have full root access. We are now providing
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS as a Docker container. Feel free to install whatever you
want.

~~~
mAritz
Last time I read about Docker and root it was not a good combination. Afaik
Docker is not secure (yet).

I hope you take extra precautions to secure Docker containers from each other.

~~~
lynxnathan
For those interested, Daniel Walsh gave a good overview of the biggest issues
at dockercon:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWGFqMuEHdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWGFqMuEHdw)

------
mark_l_watson
I will give them a try. I occasionally use the free tier at nitrous.io, and
more frequently use a paid subscription to the Haskell web based IDE at
fpcomplete.com. That said, for my main Haskell project (demo at
[http://haskell.knowledgebooks.com](http://haskell.knowledgebooks.com)) I find
local development using emacs to be more agile.

I saw the real benefits of a web based IDE when I worked at Google last year.
They have an awesome chrome web based IDE that integrates really well with
their codebase and source code management systems. I would expect other very
large tech companies to go in the same direction of a customized development
system.

------
kamme
I noticed that when using ghostery you can't do anything; clicking login
doesn't do anything, neither does clicking sign up.

~~~
untothebreach
Disconnect, too.

------
torthrowaway
As soon as I saw this it reminded me of the darknetmarket on tor with the same
name! Looks like they have a similar logo too
[http://bviaqyj6obc54vhn.onion](http://bviaqyj6obc54vhn.onion)

------
laughfactory
I checked it out and it looks pretty sweet. But is there a way to get syntax
highlighting for the Slim templating language that I'm not seeing? I use Slim
extensively. No Slim, no Cloud9 for me.

~~~
ivarpruijn
There's syntax highlighting for over 110 languages (TextMate/Sublime Text.tm
language files can be imported), but if yours is not included, the Ace editor
we use is Open Source, so you can build your own highlighter (see
[http://ace.c9.io/#nav=higlighter](http://ace.c9.io/#nav=higlighter)) or
submit a request to build it:
[https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/issues?labels=mode-
request&pa...](https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/issues?labels=mode-
request&page=1&state=open)

------
sandmanxc
Is this in any way related to [http://cloud9.gg/](http://cloud9.gg/), the
esports organization?

If not, things might get a tad awkward.

~~~
vertex-four
The Cloud9 IDE has been around for quite a while.

------
stuaxo
I thought this was going to be Cloud9 from bell labs..

~~~
chr1
The bell labs project was plan9 not cloud9
[https://www.google.com/search?q=plan9+from+bell+labs](https://www.google.com/search?q=plan9+from+bell+labs)

------
ripuli666
So. Do they only offer this 19$/month subscription? That's all? Can you even
make it an annual payment to save a bit or something?

------
kevinflo
Some time in the not so distant future we'll think that it was silly that in
2014 the majority of development was done locally.

~~~
Widdershin
I love that we've gotten to the point where a lot of things in web development
have become genuinely convenient and easy, but there is still so much in store
for us.

------
simplehuman
Anyone compare this to XDK yet?

[http://xdk-software.intel.com/](http://xdk-software.intel.com/)

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cloudwizard
Several years ago, C9 announced App Engine support. Does it support it now?

~~~
javruben
The deploy panel is disabled for now. It will come back soon, better than you
can imagine :)

~~~
matthewcanty
Very happy to read this!

------
creack
login with github redirect to github for authorization and then does not work.
No error message, just nothing. Click on login and you stay on the page.

~~~
joekrill
Same problem here. It's actually doing the auth correctly, it seems, because I
then went to the main home page again and it showed me as logged in, and I
could get to my dashboard from there.

~~~
creack
Didn't went that far, simply revoked access on my gh account.

~~~
joekrill
I probably would have done the same if I hadn't already used it in the past.
But it's worth checking out again. I tweeted support to let them know.

~~~
mastrolinux1
Ops, that was a mistake on our end, just fixed for everyone. Sorry!

------
motyar
Seems like they removed the "zen mode".

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nashashmi
They actually caught up to Koding.

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orand
Still no iPad or touch support?

