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VSCode on Google Colab

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21–30 of 53 posts

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#21
Gave it a try. Font's rendered incorrectly and were unusable which is an obvious deal breaker when you're trying to Code in a seriffed fallback. It was really slow which is my entire experience of all Jupyter/Collab notebook style approaches to coding. I really don't see what anyone else sees in this. If you want to collaborate with people just learn some tried and tested tools that are open and work.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#22

I'm curious. I know it's great for one-offs, but is anyone actually using VSCode as their main tool when so many native IDEs and text editors are available? I would love to know what's your use case. Maybe I'm missing something big.

I'm using it as my main editor for a Django codebase. It's not my favorite IDE, it's a bit slow too but it's the best I could find for what I do. Also I haven't found any good native IDE that can handle Python, Django, HTML, CSS and JS as well as VSCode. There are IDEs that can do Python (and Django) and others for HTML, CSS and JS but I don't want to be constantly switching between the two. If you know a good IDE that can replace VSCode for my use case please let me know.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#23

That's interesting, but do the Google Colab Terms of Service allow this? The article goes into how, but not if you're allowed to. Until you're certain it is allowed, I would suggest not using it. You don't want to be locked out of your (at best) colab or (at worst) Google account because you wanted a fancy IDE.

I think in general you can run arbitrary code on Colab. That's the entire point. Your CPU and RAM usage are monitored and rate limited; you have to pay $$$ for more powerful specs and at that point if you're paying them I doubt they care what you're doing with what you paid for.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#24

I'm curious. I know it's great for one-offs, but is anyone actually using VSCode as their main tool when so many native IDEs and text editors are available? I would love to know what's your use case. Maybe I'm missing something big.

I use it for every project. I mainly code node.js and sometimes Python.

Speed has never been an issue for me; VSCode boots up in under a second and easily chews through thousands of lines of code (albeit without tokenization).

The new SSH connection mode has been a lifesaver for me - you can now sync VSCode with a server you have SSH access to, meaning you can browse/open/save files remotely, and open as many terminals as you want on the target server. This makes it super easy to e.g. test code on different hardware or view logs or edit config files and such.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#26
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As there are already other projects using vscode to produce an online IDE, I think "just another" is quite fair.

Ironically given that VSCode was born as online IDE to start with.

Certainly the base editor did, but was it crossed over the (vague and subjectively defined) line between an advanced text editor to a full IDE by the point MS forked/integrated it for VS Code? My history is hazy here.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically given that VSCode was born as online IDE to start with.

Certainly the base editor did, but was it crossed over the (vague and subjectively defined) line between an advanced text editor to a full IDE by the point MS forked/integrated it for VS Code? My history is hazy here.

Monaco was not not the basis for VSCode, still exists as basis for Github codespaces and Azure based devenvs.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#28
post #6

Note that this is not "actual" VSCode, but its fork code-server, that takes VSCode and modifies it to run in a browser. https://github.com/cdr/code-server This package just installs code-server on Google Colab, whatever that is. Hosted VSCode instances that Microsoft has on Azure and in beta on GitHub are a different thing and are not open source.

> This package just installs code-server on Google Colab, whatever that is.

I laughed way too hard at this, because I have thoughts like this bounce around my head nearly every time I read about a Google product. It reminds me of Microsoft circa ~2006, when they were doing all kinds of wacky and ill-defined projects that turned into pure bloatware.

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#29
post #6

Note that this is not "actual" VSCode, but its fork code-server, that takes VSCode and modifies it to run in a browser. https://github.com/cdr/code-server This package just installs code-server on Google Colab, whatever that is. Hosted VSCode instances that Microsoft has on Azure and in beta on GitHub are a different thing and are not open source.

> This package just installs code-server on Google Colab, whatever that is. I laughed way too hard at this, because I have thoughts like this bounce around my head nearly every time I read about a Google product. It reminds me of Microsoft circa ~2006, when they were doing all kinds of wacky and ill-defined projects that turned into pure bloatware.

I have just started using Google Apps as an employee which uses it for everything

Me: "oooh! Google Currents! That sounds cool. Is it some workflow designer tool?"

Me: "oh, it's Google Plus."

Re: VSCode on Google Colab

#30
post #6

Note that this is not "actual" VSCode, but its fork code-server, that takes VSCode and modifies it to run in a browser. https://github.com/cdr/code-server This package just installs code-server on Google Colab, whatever that is. Hosted VSCode instances that Microsoft has on Azure and in beta on GitHub are a different thing and are not open source.

> code-server, that takes VSCode and modifies it to run in a browser

Not only that, but it's also only the open-source parts of VSCode. Notably, you don't get access to the same extensions marketplace. Code-server does link to many open-source extensions, but certain things (e.g. Intellisense) aren't available.

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