
Coder (Visual Studio Code in browser) goes open source - darrinm
https://coder.com
======
wodenokoto
I used to work at a place where we all used the enterprise server version of
RStudio, which also runs in a browser.

There was a lot of good thing about that setup. Nobody could walk home with
code, and no code was lost on somebody laptop.

Execution happened on a server, much more powerful than any dev machine.

~~~
paulddraper
>no code was lost on somebody laptop.

Doesn't full disk encryption solve that as well as putting it in the cloud
(and you'd need encryption anyway)

~~~
wodenokoto
Not necessarily lost to a 3rd party. Just if somebody was working on fixing a
blocker and doesn’t push progress before going home and then losing the laptop
on the train or something.

The real scenario would be “we need to finish this blocker that Jim is working
on, but he is sick and hasn’t pushed progress to git.”

As to syncing with cloud. Why not just have it on cloud and let people ssh
into the server. And then do one better better, and give them a full IDE
instead of teaching them emacs or vim.

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Hortinstein
Has anyone tried this and compared it to [https://www.theia-
ide.org/](https://www.theia-ide.org/)?

First thing off the bat I notice is that Coder looks harder to deploy or try
out, Theia was super easy, on the landing page they had a docker one liner:

docker run -it -p 3000:3000 -v "$(pwd):/home/project:cached"
theiaide/theia:next

~~~
eclipsenet
The biggest difference vs dockerized theia and coder is I have access to the
actual server instead of just the docker container.

This means I have the full power of the underlying server, access to my docker
on the host and any other features.

This also means though that it is direct shell access over the web and should
be locked down like Fort Knox.

I've put this behind Traefik with httpauth for testing and it works well so
far.

~~~
cheapsteak
Which one gives you access to the actual server?

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andreigheorghe
Why does an open source browser code editor ask for my phone number to sign
up?

~~~
garren
This got me too. It looks like a neat project, but the phone number
requirement seems a little off. There doesn't appear to be a real need for it
and running through their privacy page isn't helpful.

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ksynwa
Visual Studio Code in browser sounds a lot like Visual Studio Code itself.

~~~
johnhenry
How deep can the rabbit hole go?
[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=auchenbe...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=auchenberg.vscode-
browser-preview)

~~~
fooker
Neat!

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johnymontana
Does it work well on iPad with an external keyboard? I've been surprisingly
frustrated with the lack of support for iPad by in-browser IDEs.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
Monaco doesn't support mobile browsers, so no, probably not well.

~~~
sandis
Seems that (at least one) related bug got fixed in WebKit
([https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149054#c17](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149054#c17)),
but I haven't tested with the latest iOS betas

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NonEUCitizen
Requires a login to try. Should have non-login trial, or youtube video.

~~~
captaindiego
Github login also requires a phone number, which is definitely something I'm
not willing to enter.

~~~
bagol
Is it true? I don't recall github ever asking for a phone number when logging
in

~~~
ksynwa
Maybe they mean Coder asks for the phone number when one logs in with Github.

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Wowfunhappy
It looks super easy to host your own server. The instructions consist of:

> 1) Download a binary (Linux and OSX supported. Windows coming soon)

> 2) Start the binary with the project directory as the first argument

> code-server <inital directory to open>

From: [https://github.com/codercom/code-
server](https://github.com/codercom/code-server)

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried it.

~~~
csixty4
x86/x64 only, by the way. I couldn't get it to build VS Code on a Raspberry Pi
and the binary releases are only for x86/x64.

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anth_anm
Is this based on the same JS code editor as VS Code?

~~~
csixty4
It is VS Code. The build script grabs a copy of VSC, patches it, and builds
it.

