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Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

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Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#62
post #34

I really hope that the Cloud9 service keeps running, and maintains the free version that it currently provides. I have been using Cloud9 with the Michael Hartl Rails Tutorial to teach new programmers the basics of programming with Ruby and Rails and it has greatly reduced the friction for them to start learning. In previous classes we had the students setup a Ruby and Rails environment on their own systems and not on…

Wouldn't virtual machine basically do the same thing? I've taken some classes where teacher gave us an image where everything was already installed and configured. Everything went smoothly. However, Cloud9 is much more convenient since it runs entirely on browser but VM solution could work in case C9 discontinues its free tier.

I had the same use case as OP. Cloud 9 was an awesome way to start out, but we indeed switched to a VM solution.

With students that had less than performant laptops, C9 filled the gap.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#63
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon works coniniously to become the provider for everything you can imagine

Even the best job? Because working for them was the worst work environment I ever experienced in 15 years of employment as a software development engineer. Amazon may have some cheap prices and their customer service has the margins available to offer refunds/replacements quickly. But that all is easy guise. Amazon is rotten inside. Each product team does whatever it wants. So how long can the exterior hold a toxic s…

Cheap prices for the customer equal low pay and bad working conditions for the producer. Same is true of Wal-Mart... look into all those Chinese mega-factories where all that stuff is produced.

It's one of the core paradoxes of economics. I want a cushy job with great pay, but when I go shopping I implicitly want everyone else to have a shitty job with low pay. There's a name for this paradox but I'm forgetting it right now.

It's very similar to the paradox of thrift: it's in my interest to save, but for me to save someone else must be spending. If everyone saves nobody can save.

Almost everything in economics is a paradox since there are two columns in accounting-- every transaction has a counter-party. It's bizarre for something not to be a paradox in economics.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#64
post #44
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't virtual machine basically do the same thing? I've taken some classes where teacher gave us an image where everything was already installed and configured. Everything went smoothly. However, Cloud9 is much more convenient since it runs entirely on browser but VM solution could work in case C9 discontinues its free tier.

Agreed. In a lot of my college courses, the professors provide a VM which is completely set up for development. That means that anyone who just wants to start programming can use the VM while everyone else who wants to setup their local environment can do that. I think it's a great solution.

I'm a lecturer myself and am curious: How do your lecturers deal with the situation that students have at least three different operating systems (LINUX, Mac, Windows)? Setting up a VM will make 2/3rds cringe in my experience - setting up three VMs is a lot of work.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#65
post #15

From their homepage: > Cloud9 combines a powerful online code editor with a full Ubuntu workspace in the cloud This is the first thing I see on loading their website. Is this their main selling point? Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It works perfectly fine on my local machine, and I could even automate syncing if I wanted. Also, I could just ssh into my server and start an editor there. > Build WordPres…

> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It does not HAVE to be. But it is another option and great one at certain situations. Such as showing someone how to start programming, working on small project without having to deal with setup time etc. I really like it actually. It's not meant to be replacement of local machine IDEs.

I don't know how it's "not meant to be a replacement of local machine IDEs", I think that depends on the person using it.

I've been on Cloud9 for all my work (day job and freelance) for several years now and honestly can't imagine not using a web-based IDE.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#66
post #34

I really hope that the Cloud9 service keeps running, and maintains the free version that it currently provides. I have been using Cloud9 with the Michael Hartl Rails Tutorial to teach new programmers the basics of programming with Ruby and Rails and it has greatly reduced the friction for them to start learning. In previous classes we had the students setup a Ruby and Rails environment on their own systems and not on…

Wouldn't virtual machine basically do the same thing? I've taken some classes where teacher gave us an image where everything was already installed and configured. Everything went smoothly. However, Cloud9 is much more convenient since it runs entirely on browser but VM solution could work in case C9 discontinues its free tier.

One of these days we'll have fast enough Internet speeds in the U.S. that remote VMs will work (nicely). We're definitely not there yet.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#67
post #64
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. In a lot of my college courses, the professors provide a VM which is completely set up for development. That means that anyone who just wants to start programming can use the VM while everyone else who wants to setup their local environment can do that. I think it's a great solution.

I'm a lecturer myself and am curious: How do your lecturers deal with the situation that students have at least three different operating systems (LINUX, Mac, Windows)? Setting up a VM will make 2/3rds cringe in my experience - setting up three VMs is a lot of work.

I'd say that most students running Linux opt to install their own development environment so installing the VM for them really isn't an issue. Either way, it's much easier for the professor to spend a class showing people how to install VirtualBox, and then the class VM than showing them how to install an entire development environment locally.

Here's how it works: the professor prepares an Ubuntu VM with the entire development environment set up inside it, and then just provides the image link for the VM. The students can easily install VirtualBox, and then all they have to do is download the image and run off that.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#68
post #49
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also just start an AWS server, upload an image containing useful tools such as an editor and a webserver, and teach them to use ssh. All could be done within an hour or so. I don't see the big advantage of Cloud9.

well, i just tried it. amazon aws is a hassle to setup. especially figuring out how to qualify for the free tier. its not just a "gimme free access already". cloud9 on the other hand took me about 3 minutes to create an account, django workspace and to start developing with it. that is a massive difference.

Ok, then perhaps Amazon or Cloud9 should have fixed this. It should not be too difficult, as it probably requires just some batch scripting.

But I see no justification for creating a complete development platform in the cloud.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#69
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing this world needs is mission-critical software edited willy-nilly through a "convenient" web browser interface. We as an industry can barely put our pants on in the morning on the best of days, and now this.

He or she who has not edited production code or configurations with vim/emacs/nano cast the first stone.

Hopefully those who have done it, know why its a fucking terrible idea to use this as your default MO.

There are exceptions to every rule, that doesn't mean you should make shitting all over the rule your own new rule.

Re: Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

#70
post #52

Developers are quite conservative of their environment, but a cloud IDE could be awesome. I want to write code on a 2 lb MacBook, with continuous build-as-you-type in the cloud on a fleet of Xeons that have larger CPU caches than my entire project. Have 5, 50, 500 tests that need to run? Run them all in parallel continuously and get immediate red/green feedback in your IDE. Behind the scenes Lambda takes horizontal s…

Does a cloud IDE work well with a flaky network connection?

Any time I see a network-always-on browser-based service, I'm only interested in it if I can run offline and synchronize my state in the background.

Which is exactly what I do. I use a local editor on different machines. I sync my projects (git). I get builds and tests farmed out for me automatically (CI).

I'm just not dead in the water if I'm on a train, or a plane, or in a car, or my network dies, etc.

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