Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#21

Post by steve_taylor » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:39 AM UTC

nickmain wrote: post #9

Codea [0] provides a nice Lua development sandbox and will export projects that can be turned into standalone apps via Xcode. It is geared towards game development and is currently somewhat locked down with respect to importing/exporting, compared to Pythonista. It does play well with Working Copy [1] though. [0] https://codea.io [1] https://workingcopyapp.com

Codea is awesome. It has so many features and a ton of great examples. You can build the app entirely using an iPad and then export it as an Xcode project when you’re ready to distribute it.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#22

Post by godid » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:40 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #12

I'm struggling to work out why anyone would want to do this. Leaving aside the other concerns, I personally find input via touchscreen pretty painful and can't imagine being able to program at any real speed. It's entirely possible I'm missing something though!

I have the attachable keyboard stand that sits comfortably on my knee when I'm on the train. I can type as fast on that as I can a laptop. Honestly with a half decent IDE/dev toolchain it would be a fantastic little lightweight setup for coding.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#23

Post by flukus » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:40 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #17

russellbeattie wrote: post #3

Alternative title: "Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, because it feels so great when you stop."

What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.

> What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet?

It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#24

Post by superfrank » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

cabaalis wrote: post #7

How is the experience with web IDEs like cloud9 or repl.it?

I tried using a chromebook to develop about 12-18 months ago and tried both cloud9 and repl.it.

I found cloud9 a bit annoying to use. It basically spins up an EC2 instance for you that you are then connecting to, so you have pretty much a full file system which was cool, but it felt like they were really pushing Lambda as the way to go. Trying to run a bunch of dockerized microservices on a single instance (which is what our infrastructure is) was possible, but it just felt like an uphill battle, so I abandoned it.

Repl.it was much easier to work with, IMO. The problem I ran into was that it worked well for small projects or prototyping, but became a pain if I had to switch between multiple projects regularly.

IMO, both were cool and overall fairly solid, but there were just too many little annoyances that piled up that I don't get with my current local development set up. It just felt like I spent a lot of my time configuring things or trying to hack things to fit my workflow.

That all being said, I'm not the most patient person with new tools and this was a while ago, things might have changed or may fit your development style better. I'd say they are worth at least looking into.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#25

Post by kristianov » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #3

Alternative title: "Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, because it feels so great when you stop."

Without those who hit their heads with hammer at times, we won't know if it feels great or not.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#26

Post by ianai » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #12

I'm struggling to work out why anyone would want to do this. Leaving aside the other concerns, I personally find input via touchscreen pretty painful and can't imagine being able to program at any real speed. It's entirely possible I'm missing something though!

I’m able to get an absurd amount banged out with just my thumbs. I’ve taken comprehensive meeting notes this way. Possibly the reason to do it for coding would be the ability to code from anywhere for quite a while on battery/cell. Mosh does not take up much bandwidth or power.

As an example, I worked on some professional projects over mosh on my iPhone to my home network from work. My job at the time made a lot of time demands on me, but I had already mastered whatever professional growth I could in that position - so I took to setting up and learning tech that way.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#27

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:42 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #23

chrisseaton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.

> What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?

My screwdriver never changes. The iPad is an ever-evolving tool. It may become the right tool one day.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#28

Post by ddoolin » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:42 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #23

chrisseaton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.

> What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?

It works just fine right now, depending on what you're trying to do. I learned and continue to practice Rust development via my iPad Pro near daily.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#29

Post by delinka » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #23

chrisseaton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.

> What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?

Hammers, nails, and screws a pretty much set. They're not changing regularly.

An iPad becoming a laptop-replacement is happening - its progress is debatable, but it's definitely changing on each iteration.

Re: Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

#30

Post by ddoolin » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #12

I'm struggling to work out why anyone would want to do this. Leaving aside the other concerns, I personally find input via touchscreen pretty painful and can't imagine being able to program at any real speed. It's entirely possible I'm missing something though!

Echoing others, I use a physical keyboard. Unfortunately I'm limited to the smart keyboard cover Apple sells, mostly because I'm too cheap or lazy to buy a better one, but much better ones do exist.