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Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#71

Post by esafak »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #13
tschwimmer wrote: post #5

This is one of these things that I'm shocked there isn't more widepsread uptake on. It seems to win on some of the more important dimensions: ease of use/UX (if executed well), power of machines -> faster iteration time for many workflows, improved priacy. I am not familiar with pricing for many of these offerings and I suspect it probably is pretty expensive. Even at megacorps where they have really good cloud dev e…

I would challenge if the size of the machine or responsiveness of the cloud is superior to local. Most people are not compiling Rust all day, but refreshing JavaScript. Which is to not even bring up the cost difference to rent or own a beefy piece of hardware. 64 gigs of ram is nothing for a local machine, but comes at a cloud premium. I do think there are some real wins in ensuring development environments are consi…

> 64 gigs of ram is nothing for a local machine

It's not nothing. Most developers are issued laptops, and a 64GB Macbook costs over $3000. Plus a CDE can be shared.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#72

Post by bitwize »

Yeh. We use DevPod to work in cloud dev environments in our AWS cloud. I hate it. DevPod brings its own SSH implementation that injects itself into your server and munges CRLF, making ssh sessions to your workspace fraught with difficulty except for basic command line applications. The only terminal that seems to work is the one built in to Visual Studio Code. Maybe Microsoft Windows Terminal also works, I dunno.

If you have editor attachments and want to work this way, suck it up and learn your VS Code. That's what all the tooling supports first class. Second class is JetBrains. Vim and Emacs aren't even considered. I'd say just run them from inside the container, but then you run into things like custom SSH that munges CRLF. When you look at who actually authored the devcontainer standard, it makes sense.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#73

Post by esafak »

dmattia wrote: post #59

I used Cider while at Google, and setup Google Codespaces at the startup I'm working at now. Some notes: - Codespaces uses the devcontainer spec, so folks can use our setup offline if they want - I get far fewer questions about how to do XYZ, and when I do get questions, I can almost always reproduce them, which is a breath of fresh air - We do pay a fair chunk to use high CPU/memory machines, this is worth it for us…

I presume you mean GitHub Codespaces because Google's offering is called IDX, and in development.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#74

Post by jlmorton »

ctvo wrote: post #44
jlmorton wrote: post #19

For Jetbrains users: Step 1. Create an Oracle Cloud account Step 2. Create an Ampere 6 core, 32gb memory instance for like $5/mo Step 3. Use Jetbrains Gateway to run your IDE as a thin client, executing on that host. You get a pretty darn beefy ARM64 VM instance from OCI for extremely cheap. You can get these in a region near you, with low latency. And Jetbrains Gateway works pretty great. On the plus side, this is a…

Jetbrains Gateway is very poor compared to VS Code's remote development plugin. I can't use it without wanting to pull my hair out. It's laggy, installing plugins is painful (per project?!), etc.. Has it improved in the last year?

Yes, it's improved remarkably over the past year. I had the same experience as you, but it's at the point where it's pretty usable.

There are still irritations. But I am comfortable using it day-to-day.

It's absolutely critical that your remote gateway be nearby. I'm about 10ms away from mine, and though there is sometimes perceptible lag, it's not bad at all.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#75

Post by brody_hamer »

jlmorton wrote: post #19

For Jetbrains users: Step 1. Create an Oracle Cloud account Step 2. Create an Ampere 6 core, 32gb memory instance for like $5/mo Step 3. Use Jetbrains Gateway to run your IDE as a thin client, executing on that host. You get a pretty darn beefy ARM64 VM instance from OCI for extremely cheap. You can get these in a region near you, with low latency. And Jetbrains Gateway works pretty great. On the plus side, this is a…

Do you mean $50/month? Or maybe $5/day? I’m reading:

> Ampere A1 compute… with cores billed at $0.01 per OCPU-hour and memory billed at $0.0015 per GB-hour in all regions.

So for 6 cores and 32gb memory I’m calculating $78.84 per month.

I’d love to get 32gb of ram for $5/month.. but it sounds too good to be true.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#76

Post by stevage »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #66

I'll repost here a comment I made on another HN post about cloud dev environments and why I will never be convinced to use them. > I have never in my career seen a good implementation of cloud development. At every company I've ever worked for, "cloud development" is nothing but a Linux VM that gets provisioned for you in AWS, a file watcher that syncs your local files to the VM, and some extra CLI tools to run build…

I briefly worked for Facebook. Their cloud dev environment blew my mind. Way better than trying to get that stack running on your machine.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#77

Post by siamese_puff »

metadat wrote: post #26
rconti wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the advantage of having the workstation at a datacenter in this context?

$60/yr vs thousands of $ upfront for a comparable desktop or notebook machine. Not to mention the superior network connectivity (10 gigabit/s). In fact, there are no 10gbps options from the common last mile carriers available at any price (AT&T, Crapcast). And if they did offer it, it'd probably be $500USD/mo+ just for Internet. AT&T has a 5gbps fiber plan available for $250USD+/mo, but there are very few (>10 fracti…

Where are you seeing these prices? OVH seems way more than what you’re saying, but might be looking at the wrong thing

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#78

Post by navanchauhan »

randomluck040 wrote: post #17
navanchauhan wrote: post #3

Most of the CS classes at my university have moved on to an online Jupyter environment with VS Code preinstalled. It lets students spawn an environment with all the required software for their class preinstalled. E.g. For Computer System it spawns an environment with GDB pre-installed, while for Intro to AI it has PyTorch/Python3 pre-installed

Do you know how that works exactly or do you have a link where I can educate myself on the topic of using Python online in a sort-of-IDE? I‘m teaching Python fundamentals and don’t know how to sail around helping everyone with their individual problems with their machines while installing python or an ide.

https://www.colorado.edu/cs/students/computing-resources-stu...

Refer to the section titled “CSCI JupyterHub Coding Environment”

Alternatively, as another user pointed out: https://tljh.jupyter.org/en/latest/install/custom-server.htm...

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

#80

Post by scubadude »

I don't really trust the whole Node Package Manager ecosystem and will happily use a prophylactic like Codesandbox on my work computer where possible.

Also I have to upskill some colleagues and what better way to do that than share a demo in Codesandbox that they can fork and play with, rather than an email with 20 step instructions on installing node (on Windows)

For actual development I can't work with a thin client, it's too slow.

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