Online IDEs.. do they work for you?

19    08 Jul 2015 15:36 by u/bufferoverflow

I'm coming from a background of powerful local IDEs (eclipse, intellij, cbuilder, visual studio, etc.) and I'm wondering if you have been able to leverage online IDEs in an equivalent manner for enterprise-scale projects or even just somewhat large scale (50k + lines of code). If so, which online IDE do you recommend, and in what ways would it make sense to use this over a local IDE beyond easier collaboration? Thanks for your insight!

22 comments

11 u/zombieman 08 Jul 2015 15:57

In my honest opinion, I haven't really cared for any of them. In almost every case, I would rather use local offerings, simply because I do not always code when I can be online.

Depending on the device, it may or may not work with your browser well either (looking at you Surface RT).

I am interested in hearing others opinions on this subject, as I have been looking around for a good quality online IDE as well, if for nothing else just to use occasionally.

4 u/Xenoprimate 08 Jul 2015 17:45

Also I don't want the choice of having to run the realtime static analysis (e.g. the warning/error squiggles) either on the server (therefore waiting 1sec for updates) or in Javascript in some clunky web browser. I think online IDEs might have a place integrated in to things like github, for quick edits etc, but Visual Studio stays on my SSD for now. :P

1 u/zombieman 08 Jul 2015 17:48

Not sure I could give up Visual Studio, nothing compares IMO.

It looks like the online IDE's are mostly for web coding, although some also do some C++ and the like. Not sure how I like having my code stored on their servers, especially if it is not OSS. I think I will stick to github for online code management.

3 u/ninjai 08 Jul 2015 21:47

I had no idea online IDEs were an option. Isn't anyone concerned that the online IDEs may be stealing source code?

1 u/TrevorLahey 09 Jul 2015 16:16

I wish I could give you a thousand upvotes for that. Nothing is free. If the tool is free then something is being harvested and sold -- information about you, metrics about what or how you work, and certainly source code is not beyond consideration.

On another tangent, beyond a good search engine and discussion forum, I dislike any online dependency in my workflow. I even dislike software downloads and installs from the Internet. Yes, I'm a self-contradicting Linux and Android guy and can't imagine life now without such but I still don't like it. There's something reassuring about knowing that you've got everything you need self-contained or in a box of discs to be able to pursue your coding without being dependent on a resource or tool that's so easy to lose access to.

1 u/ninjai 09 Jul 2015 17:00

There's something reassuring about knowing that you've got everything you need self-contained or in a box of discs to be able to pursue your coding without being dependent on a resource or tool that's so easy to lose access to.

'Tis pretty much why I have my own netflix, so to speak. And my own music streaming service.

Just kidding, I'm talking that up. I built myself a $2,000 10.7TB FreeNAS NAS. I have a DNS jail, a wiki jail, automated media downloads, and Plex with PlexPass. If I want to watch a show while I'm on my lunch break... I either stream from my NAS or I sync it before hand to my HTC One M8.

I think we have a lot in common on our beliefs of software and dependencies on "the cloud". I don't even use services like lastpass. I made my own ghetto setup instead. KeePass ad OwnCloud on my NAS. That shiz syncs to my phone too.

I also stopped running linux on my desktop... but only because I do enjoy gaming. I feel pretty insecure running windows though, because whether people admit it or not, I guarantee you're being spied on when you are using Windows to some degree.

OK I'll just be over here with my tinfoil hat.

0 u/TrevorLahey 09 Jul 2015 17:29

Ha! Plex is pretty decent, I have to admit. Been running it for about a year now and have been quite the hero to the wife and kids when weather has knocked out connectivity to Netflix.

0 u/ninjai 09 Jul 2015 17:54

If weather knocks out netflix.. it's usually because of power. I only have 1 UPS and its for my NAS lol. No TV watching for us :(

5 u/amphetamachine 08 Jul 2015 16:06

Traditionally "online" simply meant "on a computer"; man pages are often called "online documentation" as opposed to "offline documentation" i.e. paper manuals. However since it's 2015, I will assume you mean on-the-internet.

I've always found the browser's key commands they get in the way of the key commands I like to use for editing and normal build processes. For instance, someone made vim to run in a browser but if I use F5 to run :make all of a sudden the page refreshes. If I use Ctrl-W to execute a window command, it closes the window.

3 u/Xyc0 08 Jul 2015 16:17

What do you mean by "online"?

2 u/bufferoverflow [OP] 08 Jul 2015 16:19

In-browser code editors that typically save your code on remote servers.

1 u/Xyc0 08 Jul 2015 18:24

I've yet to find one that had a privacy policy that suited me--no guarantees my code wasn't being ripped off.

2 u/kuda 08 Jul 2015 16:37

Tried the free/starter package of Nitrous once to develop our own company website. If your team is already good at using version control, it don't really give you too many advantages. Except for the "live/online" mode (Google Docs style live collaboration). It's nice to have when we need 2-4 people to discuss a particular part of code and trying out ideas. The free package sometimes feel very slow when we open too many tabs but we don't see why we need to pay for just small advantage, sorry Nitrous :(( But I do recommend people to try it especially when the team and the project isn't too big.

2 u/jrl5432 08 Jul 2015 18:23

Online IDEs are okay, but when portable versions of editors like Sublime Text exist, I can't justify using them for anything more than 30 second jobs.

1 u/zombieman 09 Jul 2015 05:18

I tried a few of them when I couldn't use the portable versions of my programs, such as when I was on a tablet (Surface RT, Moto Xoom). IMO They were just too slow for what I wanted.

But on the desktop, I can't NOT use a local program, it makes no sense unless you are doing something very specific.

1 u/IAmNotACylon 09 Jul 2015 14:29

I think the slow factor you were experiencing had more to do with the tablet. Front-end engineers use tools like jsFiddle and Plunker constantly, they are especially useful for demonstrating componentized code. Here's an example of a currencyFormat tester I made to speed up the dev cycle with my Testing/PM team on a project. By sending them this link, they were able to get instant feedback about what the function did and then let me know what customizations they wanted. (For instance, they wanted percents to be preserved.)

1 u/zombieman 09 Jul 2015 14:40

I know they were slow in the tablet, but they were also slow on my desktop. I don't consider the *fiddle sites to be online IDEs, they are more for testing scripts to me.

The online IDEs I was referring to are places like cloud9, Ideone, etc... where they try to give you that full IDE through a browser. This would be for languages such as C++.

I use the *fiddle sites a lot actually, and my professors always used them in classes. I think those are great, but they won't replace a local IDE for me.

2 u/blueberryapple 08 Jul 2015 20:09

I like c9.io there's terminal and github integration. And it allows you to collaborate with others easily as well.

1 u/riktors 08 Jul 2015 18:53

I've had pretty good experiences with codenvy from my chromebook when I didn't want to haul along my normal work laptop. Has good ide features and various build support. Just hook up your git repo to a project and get working. Much better than trying to do everything with a text editor.

1 u/mathiash98 08 Jul 2015 20:23

Well depends on what you are doing, CodeBender.cc is a great IDE for Arduino with integrated libraries, automated setups and more.

1 u/orphanblack 09 Jul 2015 03:04

I tried cloud IDE's like cloud9 and code anywhere and I didn't like them very much. They seemed useful initially but a few things range from mild annoyances to giant pains: a) lack of complete control / root access to development environment. So installing packages is not always that easy b) coding within browser slows you down and its clunky. I can't alt-tab easily (control tab is not that intuitive). c). the IDEs are never that advanced and you can't customize them much or install plugins like with atom or eclipse.

I much prefer hosting the dev environment remotely but using a local IDE like atom.

The cloud IDEs are pretty useful if you need to make a quick fix when on the go - from the iPad or even an iPhone 6. But thats an edge case.