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Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#32

I use ssh + tmux + emacs. Security policy states no local copies of development files are allowed at my workplace without special authorization, which I never bothered asking for. Migrated my emacs configuration to the remote server as a git repository, along with any programs that aren't available (e.g. git, which I use for unofficial code; official code is managed via perforce). Use GNU stow to move those configura…

Thanks for answer. I'd love to learn about what solution your Sublime coworkers use, as most people here use emacs / vim and I'm most proficient with Sublime.

I use a patchy python script (pyhon isn't my first language) to accomplish it. It basically just rsyncs the file once it's saved (using `on_post_save`). It's a bit tedious because I need to manually add folders it's going to watch, Also, it's not exactly remote code editing, since there's a local copy of the file (which is downloaded/uploaded). I believe most Sublime users do something similar to this, however I hope I'm wrong and I'd love to hear about an alternate approach!

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#33
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you think is that? Could you, please, elaborate?

Sure. Couple of scenarios where I've seen people working on a server and why that's bad: 1) The developers in this company that work with ColdFusion develop their software on a dev server because they would otherwise require expensive licenses for each dev machine. This means that devs often find themselves editting the same file. It also means that one dev can break the software for all other devs. Last but not leas…

Well, that is true if you're working on the production code directly and this is not always the case when working on remote server.

But I understand your point of view. :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#34

I use ssh + tmux + emacs. Security policy states no local copies of development files are allowed at my workplace without special authorization, which I never bothered asking for. Migrated my emacs configuration to the remote server as a git repository, along with any programs that aren't available (e.g. git, which I use for unofficial code; official code is managed via perforce). Use GNU stow to move those configura…

Thanks for answer. I'd love to learn about what solution your Sublime coworkers use, as most people here use emacs / vim and I'm most proficient with Sublime.

Probably they're using the "Sublime SFTP plugin" by wbond... I usually use nano on the remote server and sublime remotely via ssh with this plugin. But to be honest it is just for small tasks. 95% of the time we work in local servers with Vagrant/Docker (shared folder --> git push), since our deployments aren't that big.

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#36
post #29
post #6

I see no reason to develop on a server. If that's what you're doing, that's a very bad sign in most of the cases.

There is an enormous reason if you work on, or use, systems designed for massive parallelism.

I still don't see the necessity... Develop locally, test remotely.

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you think is that? Could you, please, elaborate?

Sure. Couple of scenarios where I've seen people working on a server and why that's bad: 1) The developers in this company that work with ColdFusion develop their software on a dev server because they would otherwise require expensive licenses for each dev machine. This means that devs often find themselves editting the same file. It also means that one dev can break the software for all other devs. Last but not leas…

Actually, I have a coldfusion app that I look after (small amounts of maintenance). These days it's easiest for me to simply make changes in the production machine and then commit/push when done. It's not a big deal if you're the sole developer and the changes are simple enough.

Regarding the license issue, I believe Adobe have a developer edition that's free to install but is limited to a single ip accessing it. That may have changed now - I've used an open source alternative called Railo for years that away better in almost every way.

My setup day to day is a local vagrant machine I ssh into and do everything from there (vim). Some of my work requires far more powerful machines so I also have machines running at AWS that I use in exactly the same way with exactly the same config.

I just got sick to death of trying to install / configure stuff on OS X where nothing works quite as it should.

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#38

I'd argue you shouldn't be working on remote servers at all. Ideally you should be working locally and deploy using Capistrano, Jenkins, Bamboo or git hooks etc.

Sure, and hope that you never have to ssh into a hung box to figure out what went haywire.

You're entirely missing the point; there are reasons to manually make contact with a server aside from deploying.

Re: Ask HN: How do you work efficiently on remote servers?

#40
post #3

TRAMP mode in emacs let's you edit remote files, do dired etc through ssh, so that mitigates the dotfile syncing problem. edit: also sshfs, tho that isn't always a smooth experience

+1 for tramp mode. Nice to have all local .emacs configurations/modes available. Not that I endorse editing on production servers ...
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