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GitHub Codespaces

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Re: GitHub Codespaces

#401

Post by sneak »

hamandcheese wrote: post #354
yarrel wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those of you downvoting this - can you explain what you disagree with here? Because it looks like a good analysis of this part of Microsoft's strategy to turn "Open Source" into a spyware-laden sausage machine for Azure.

I think the downvotes are because Microsoft has been providing some amazing tools completely free of charge. If that helps them sell more Azure... great! Everyone wins, except GitLab and AWS. Calling it spyware is hyperbolic. Keep it up Microsoft.

Not at all. There are no objective criteria to define spyware that do not also apply to Windows or VS Code (and probably the GitHub mobile app, but I have not yet confirmed that).

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#402

Post by wpietri »

meheleventyone wrote: post #381
wpietri wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to argue that MS is giving this away just to be nice, instead of as a calculated move toward sustaining or increasing revenue, I'd be interested to see that. But for now let's assume they're doing what their shareholders expect: making money. We can't know whether I'm an intermediate product without knowing their goals, which they're unlikely to be transparent about. But lets suppose one of their goals…

If all this is really what you believe rather than just being argumentative then how can you use any product. Usage and market share statistics are just as useful to JetBrains in that regard and you pay them for the privilege of being an “intermediate product”.

Jetbrains shows no signs of wanting to be a monopoly player in development tools. I've been a customer a long time, and I think they've done a great job of balancing making money with doing solid work and serving their customers. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a long history of willful domination and exploitation, and they've specifically done that with free products to kneecap competitors.

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#403

Post by wpietri »

yarrel wrote: post #342
recursive wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see some differences. I was attempting to use those differences to illustrate one of the ways that this maxim about consumers and products is overly broad.

It's interesting that this is the moment at which you chose to do that.

Exactly. All generalizations are broad. But nobody goes around objecting to generalizations every time they see one; they'd get nothing else done. So the pattern in which they do that is always informative.

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#404

Post by wiredone »

klysm wrote: post #293
sparky_ wrote: post #284

Must be fun for @sytse to watch these GitHub announcements every year, where they consistently release the same thing GitLab rolled out two years prior. Codespaces -> https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/web_ide/ Insights -> https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/insights/ GH Actions -> https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/ etc

GH is clearly not innovating nearly as much as GitLab and hasn’t been for a long time, but since they have so a huge chunk of the market already they can see what works and what doesn’t work for GitLab and cherry pick what they like. Apple operates in a very similar manner - in many areas they lag behind.

I'm not sure this is correct. GH seems to take their time, and get things right. They're product leadership is really top tier compared to the rest of the tools providers who are often quick to release a feature half-baked hoping to iterate. I've rarely seen a GH feature that's not fully polished and "makes sense" on day 1.

They are the Apple of the dev tools space. Less is nearly always more.

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#405

Post by xpe »

zerkten wrote: post #373
op03 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone builds something and doesn't actually mention why, its not unreasonable to ask what the motivation was...

Have you asked them? You can hit up pretty much anyone these days on Twitter and they'll respond, if the question is reasonable. You make it sound like someone owes you a response. If this is about GitHub Actions specifically there is quite a bit of info at https://github.blog/2019-08-08-github-actions-now-supports-c... . My takeaway is that it's about packaging up Azure Pipelines in a way that GitHub users understan…

> You make it sound like someone owes you a response.

I didn't interpret the comment that way.

BTW, I'm not saying your interpretation is "not true" or "crazy" or anything like that. I just think it is better to keep this kind of (bad faith) interpretation private. I think it is useful to remember this HN guideline "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." [1]

The benefit, which is not spelled out there, is that if more of us do this, there will be fewer amplifications / chain-reactions of misinterpretations. This results in a more useful discussion.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#406

Post by ksec »

One of the hardest part getting anyone into Programming is actually setting up their Dev environment. ( You have many different platform, OS version or other compatibles issues... etc. And most student dont have clue about any of these ) You then have to teach them basic Git ( Github ) usage.

Cloud9 could be great but hasn't gotten any traction apart from using it for some tutorials.

This Codespaces brings the best of both world and kill two birds with one stone.

The next step is Azure, hopefully they could have an Amazon Lightsail equivalent that is simple to understand and deploy without scaring beginners away.

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#407

Post by radus »

MauranKilom wrote: post #340
cachestash wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I could see myself using this is in the following scenario; 1. Browsing repos. 2. See a quick fix I could make (like a typo) 3. Open up the code space view, make the change, add and commit it. For my daily needs I would never replace an online IDE with my local IDE. I see no value in doing that. My concern would be for when github has a service outage. I am without my IDE until they resolve the issue? W…

> The only time I could see myself using this is in the following scenario You can already do this. There's an edit button when you view any file and a streamlined process for turning your change into a PR. I don't think Codespaces will make this any faster. Maybe you can fix slightly less trivial things due to the IDE support but on the level you described no new capabilities are added.

I think with the same editor experience as I use on my own machine, I can fix substantially more complicated issues, with significantly less effort.

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#408

Post by riazrizvi »

Hypothetically, say I wanted to build, I don't know, a new spreadsheet that ran Python, runs on macOS and Linux. I hope it will give Excel a run for its money. Since Excel is so disappointing outside Windows.

Now I know Microsoft has a long history of safeguarding trade secrets, they were always very aggressive in this regard, from the beginning, the Xerox Parc days, and they still are. They state in their Investor Report that in Research & Development, they safeguard trade secrets, and are a world leader in patent pursuit [1].

Surely I don't need to worry that this platform for online development, tied to my source code, is not just another step towards making it easier for them to have a sneak peak into what I'm building? I know they can see my code in Github, but as a developer I know source code is one thing, but getting code to compile and run is a lot more work (on a very big project). This would make it even easier to dip into project runtimes, since IDE and environment settings are stored online now.

I mean, there's no way that strategically, they would aggressively try to bulwark their own business lines, by snooping on competing tech, and using insights to help strategically direct their patent lawyers, advising them on who to go after an how. And anyway, even if they did do that occasionally, there's no way they would bully me unjustly, I would surely deserve it. Right?

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/financial-re...

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#409

Post by eeZah7Ux »

hamandcheese wrote: post #354
yarrel wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those of you downvoting this - can you explain what you disagree with here? Because it looks like a good analysis of this part of Microsoft's strategy to turn "Open Source" into a spyware-laden sausage machine for Azure.

I think the downvotes are because Microsoft has been providing some amazing tools completely free of charge. If that helps them sell more Azure... great! Everyone wins, except GitLab and AWS. Calling it spyware is hyperbolic. Keep it up Microsoft.

Microsoft has been adopting standards to then extend them and lock-in users for two decades.

> Microsoft has been providing some amazing tools completely free of charge

Yes, and they are the opposite of a no-profit.

This are just the first steps: "embrace" and "extend".

Re: GitHub Codespaces

#410

Post by pedalpete »

My hope and suspicion is this will have a significant impact on the number of improvements to open-source projects and particularly little things like js components.

Just in the last few days, I've come across a few very minor bugs, with a one-line fix. In order to make that change, I currently need to fork the repo, download it, make the change (turn off my prettier or adapt to the repo's) then make the PR.

I'm hoping with this I can just make a PR in the owner's package. It's the difference between a 10 minute commit and a 1 minute change.

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