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Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

typefox.io

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Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#2
How does it compare to existing versions of this like Eclipse Che or Cloud9 (c9.io)?

I don't see the motivation they had to build this other than they wanted support for YANG right? I'd want to see their motivation behind taking on such a big project

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#3
I realize it's super early, and this look interesting, but I'm unable to figure out if "cloud" in this case means:

- Runs in a Browser for the purposes of editing files locally

or

- Runs in a Browser and we have a whole backend way of spinning up a VM/Docker/something for you to do things with as well (The new defunct https://www.nitrous.io/ did this so you could do things like remotely run pg, your Rails stack, etc.)

Both are good/bad for different reasons, mostly just curious.

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#4

I realize it's super early, and this look interesting, but I'm unable to figure out if "cloud" in this case means: - Runs in a Browser for the purposes of editing files locally or - Runs in a Browser and we have a whole backend way of spinning up a VM/Docker/something for you to do things with as well (The new defunct https://www.nitrous.io/ did this so you could do things like remotely run pg, your Rails stack, etc.…

I think the second, because of this line from the article:

"So you would build one application and run it in both contexts. Theia even supports a third mode, which is a native desktop app connecting to a remote workspace."

Which implies the browser version is connection to a remote workplace by default.

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#5

I realize it's super early, and this look interesting, but I'm unable to figure out if "cloud" in this case means: - Runs in a Browser for the purposes of editing files locally or - Runs in a Browser and we have a whole backend way of spinning up a VM/Docker/something for you to do things with as well (The new defunct https://www.nitrous.io/ did this so you could do things like remotely run pg, your Rails stack, etc.…

It's the latter, the backend process (that exposes the filesytem etc) can be anywhere and the frontend (browser or electron) will connect to it over tcp.

How you setup vms/docker or something is up to you however as long as the theia backend (nodejs) can run in it.

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#6
post #2

How does it compare to existing versions of this like Eclipse Che or Cloud9 (c9.io)? I don't see the motivation they had to build this other than they wanted support for YANG right? I'd want to see their motivation behind taking on such a big project

From the comments secction in the article from Sven Efftinge : "

The IDE in Eclipse Che can only run in browsers and in the context of a Che workspace server but not standalone as a desktop app. Our customers need a solution that can be hosted from containers, similarly to Che but also run as standard desktop apps, similar to the traditional Eclipse IDE. So Theia aims at both desktop applications as well as cloud applications.

That said, to me the sweet spot of Eclipse Che is not its IDE, but the workspace management. We are in close collaboration with Eclipse Che developers to make sure that Theia can be used within Che. "

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#7
post #2

How does it compare to existing versions of this like Eclipse Che or Cloud9 (c9.io)? I don't see the motivation they had to build this other than they wanted support for YANG right? I'd want to see their motivation behind taking on such a big project

Also the motivation is to make an opensource IDE that's not managed by one company in particular like vscode&microsoft or atom&github...

The end goal is to have something that has its governance managed by a fondation and that multiple entities can contribute to.

So don't think of it as typefox taking this on their own they're not alone and more contributors will get involved.

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#8
post #2

How does it compare to existing versions of this like Eclipse Che or Cloud9 (c9.io)? I don't see the motivation they had to build this other than they wanted support for YANG right? I'd want to see their motivation behind taking on such a big project

Some more information in this interview: https://jaxenter.com/theia-ide-efftinge-interview-134467.htm...

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#9

I realize it's super early, and this look interesting, but I'm unable to figure out if "cloud" in this case means: - Runs in a Browser for the purposes of editing files locally or - Runs in a Browser and we have a whole backend way of spinning up a VM/Docker/something for you to do things with as well (The new defunct https://www.nitrous.io/ did this so you could do things like remotely run pg, your Rails stack, etc.…

There's nothing that prevents you from doing the first one, if for some reason you prefer working in the browser rather than in some Electron application. For fully local scenarios, it is expected that it will be able to work like a standard editor: you just launch it and work, you don't have to be aware of this frontend/backend separation.

The use case I am interested in is the following: at my company, code has to stay on central servers/infrastructure, you shouldn't clone it on your laptop. The only choices to work are either a graphical editor through a remote X session or a terminal-based editor, both having important shortcomings. Having a complete IDE (electron or browser) that edits files remotely be really nice in that situation.

Re: Theia – One IDE for Desktop and Cloud

#10
I saw this a few months ago and have played with Che. I can't stop imagining a headless VS Code running somewhere in a container, with a remote web UI (the VS Code UI already is easy to run in browser, see what the SourceGraph folks are doing, or this Theia is using VS Code components as well).

But, I don't do much GUI / client-side work, so I don't know if such a thing is feasible at all.

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