How is this different than Koding? http://koding.com
Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#12I have to admit, I'm a little confused about the value proposition here. Yes, managing dev environments is indeed a pain. So the answer is...ditch local development entirely and code in the cloud? I'd argue that the better solution is to create a makefile for dev environments and distribute that to your team. You might even call it "Boxen" and release it on Github a few days ago.
Call me crazy, but I'm really reluctant to throw away the thousands of hours I have invested in my dev tools to use some web-based dev tools that may not be around in 6 months. It's good that you have web-based vim and emacs emulators/clones/etc but I don't use vim or emacs.
Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but it would also worry me to trust another company with, well, basically my entire programming stack from dev tools to code to runtime. Especially if the HQ is not in the US (and it looks like your main HQ is in Singapore, so if you do steal something the barrier-to-justice is even higher than normal. OTOH you might get caned for stealing code, which makes things interesting.)
The thing that might be somewhat successful is a kind of CPanel for developers, where you can host your own web-enabled dev tools, and pay a subscription fee to a company to keep your stuff up-to-date. Hey, that's a good idea!
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#13I have to admit, I'm a little confused about the value proposition here. Yes, managing dev environments is indeed a pain. So the answer is...ditch local development entirely and code in the cloud? I'd argue that the better solution is to create a makefile for dev environments and distribute that to your team. You might even call it "Boxen" and release it on Github a few days ago. Call me crazy, but I'm really relucta…
Hey Josh, thanks for the thoughts.
You can use tools like Boxen, Puppet or Chef, but those tools are not useful for less experienced developers or designers who have to run the full stack just to touch the markup. Many developers prefer to write code instead of having to maintain scripts to build development environments. Similarly in production, many developers prefer a PaaS like Heroku or AppFog over dealing with VPSes or EC2.
Another caveat of setting up development environments locally is that you have to repeat the setup procedure for every machine that you would like to develop on.
Cloud environments make it easier to adhere to important application design patterns like treating backing services (like databases or caches) as attached resources. It also makes it easier to run the entire spectrum of your application on the same infrastructure, reducing dev / prod runtime issues in the continuous delivery process.
The collaborative opportunities are also really exciting. Pair programming collaboration (we pair remotely pretty often), as well as sharing and cloning environments are made possible by hosting the environment on the cloud.
We have some other great ideas in development currently that we think will significantly reduce the amount of time you spend setting up, managing, and using your environment, and the time you spend synchronizing your environment with teammates.
With regards to your location question-- Our company is incorporated and headquartered in the US; our main office is in Menlo Park, although we do also roam around the city a lot. Happy to grab a beer with you sometime if you're in San Francisco!
The majority of our infrastructure is on AWS, and while we do utilize their global availability zones, you can choose the regions where your box is provisioned.
Happy to send you an invite, just email us at hello at action dot io
Cheers AJ @ Action.IO
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#14Call me a cynic but why would I need this ? A linode/ec2/azure linux vm and a Terminal is all that I need to do web development these days. Setting up a web server is such a breeze already. Is there a need to simplify it further ? just asking.
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#15This seems very similar to Heroku when it first launched[1].
[1]: http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0001/3459/1...
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#16I've been working in their web IDE for the past week coding a side project in nodejs using coffeescript. So far I've been impressed. If the web IDE isn't your thing, you have ssh access and can use vim/emacs.
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#17Can this be termed as an example of software defined data center?
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#18Shared meaning each in its.own vm or each sharing a vm with other.people? If they are sharing a vm how do you make it secure?
Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#19Re: Action.IO: Web Development Server with Full Console, Online IDE and SSH Access
#20Call me a cynic but why would I need this ? A linode/ec2/azure linux vm and a Terminal is all that I need to do web development these days. Setting up a web server is such a breeze already. Is there a need to simplify it further ? just asking.
Yes. For mobile devices or netbooks (chromebooks), cloud IDEs are pretty ideal.