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GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

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431–440 of 704 posts

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#431

I've developed on a remote server for about 8 years now. It started when I was a contractor and my machine was simply too slow to run the project I was assigned. I did not have the money for a new laptop, but I could afford the ~55/month for a dedicated server with 32GB and 4cores. I have worked that way ever since. I've been fortunate enough to work at companies that run their own VM infrastructure which allow me to…

I've been doing something similar for the past few years. I have a development machine running tmux + vim that I can connect to via ssh / mosh. Biggest issue I've run into was high latency while in Europe (since my box is in the US), but otherwise it works great, even on flaky connections. The ability to download / build large docker images with a beefy computer is a very nice feature as you mentioned.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#432
post #358

Serious question: if I were to use this, would Microsoft collect analytics on me (code written, keystrokes, mouse movements, sleep/work schedule, productivity metrics, etc) and monetize that data by using it to build some AI product like Copilot, or build a productivity dashboard so managers can fire people for not being productive enough (like Xsolla did), use it to serve me ads, or do some stupid/irresponsible/unet…

I would like for MS to collect information that would make the product better. If there is a feature that I am always using, i want them to know it so that they can either improve it or not get rid of it.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#433
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to grab the dependencies before running make, some of which you'll grab from apt/yum/chocolatey/macports, some you'll need to compile manually and put in a platform-dependent location, ... Then you can run `make world`. Of course, BSD make is not completely compatible with GNU make...

OpenBSD and FreeBSD at least can compile themselves from /usr/src on a default install, fresh out of the box with zero additional packages.

"It can compile on a single platform from curated sources" is a very easy requirement to meet.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#434
post #197
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people like not having their physical machine tied to their dev environment. IMO "the way" to do this is with ssh and tmux, not a web app. As long as people have choices I guess it doesn't matter.

Quotee here. I agree! I use tmux and vim via ssh for github.com development in Codespaces.

Interesting… Can you use Neovim? Can you persist you custom vimrc config and plugins between sessions?

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#436

Jetbrains Project support for this would be fantastic.

If you create a Codespace, then install Projector, you can securely forward its server port and then access it from your browser: https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/developing-in-codespac... .

Awesome, might give this a try then. Never did use codespaces before - this would be killer.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#437
post #137

Ugh, now not only you don't own your code ( ahem copilot cough ) you also don't own the tools to develop code. The direction the web is taking is worrisome. The issue is not so much senior devs, but new devs. If they start off with things like that, there' so much magic under the hood, they won't understand how anything works. They don't understand they don't own shit until it's too late. I remember when I first saw…

I assume a huge part of why GitHub is okay with this is that VS Code / Codespaces and Azure are both products from the same company. :) I do think there's a serious autonomy question here, and I think companies do actually care a lot about maintaining their autonomy from other companies, and in many cases the incentives align a lot. The whole stack here seems like something that you can run internally / self-host: -…

> VS Code, whose remoting stuff is not FOSS

Do you have more details on this? I thought VC Code just uses the language server protocol for remote editing, which supposed to be an open standard. What stops say neovim adding full LSP support?

edit:formatting

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, whenever I hear this kind of rhetoric - if my company ever required it's time for a new job - I roll my eyes. Sure, keep pushing yourself out of more companies, there are a lot of good engineers* who will be absolutely as productive as you and who won't be a drain on everyone around them. *it's always engineers making these statements or I only know engineers

There are plenty of engineers but few good ones. Hiring is brutal, especially now, so good developers can afford to be picky and find another semi identical job in almost no time.

I hear you, but I'm suggesting that this trait is part of what differentiates a good engineer. If I'm hiring someone and they have a bunch of recent moves that are stemmed from reasons like "they wanted to use some process that I refused to try" or "they made us go through some training that I thought was a waste of time", then I consider that to be a very risky candidate.

There should honestly be some good faith on both sides. It doesn't make sense for a job, in most cases, to be strict about an editor. But it's also not a good move for eng to be walking around talking about all the fragile things they'll quit abruptly for.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#439
post #358

Serious question: if I were to use this, would Microsoft collect analytics on me (code written, keystrokes, mouse movements, sleep/work schedule, productivity metrics, etc) and monetize that data by using it to build some AI product like Copilot, or build a productivity dashboard so managers can fire people for not being productive enough (like Xsolla did), use it to serve me ads, or do some stupid/irresponsible/unet…

I don’t know if this is a good indicator or not, but Codespaces costs money. So there is a non-zero probability that you are not the product.

Businesses rarely ever leave money on the table.

If they can sell the product AND sell developer productivity metrics to management, they will.

Re: GitHub’s engineering team has moved to Codespaces

#440
post #236

Ugh, now not only you don't own your code ( ahem copilot cough ) you also don't own the tools to develop code. The direction the web is taking is worrisome. The issue is not so much senior devs, but new devs. If they start off with things like that, there' so much magic under the hood, they won't understand how anything works. They don't understand they don't own shit until it's too late. I remember when I first saw…

Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking that fantasy games are actually a thinly disguised sci-fi commentary on the direction of modern programming. Take for example the Protoss race in Starcraft or the Sheika tribe in Breath of the Wild - the premise is basically that there's a highly advanced society using the remnants of amazing ancient technology that they themselves no longer understand.

Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
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