Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#41

Post by dorkinspace » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

flyingswift wrote: post #5

taurath wrote: post #2

I’m disappointed this wasn’t really about remote workers but about remote development as in code doesn’t live on the machine. That said, remote development tends to be awful, and more tools could be helpful if it’s not specific to a FBs particular implementation of remote dev shards. Learning that at Facebook you don’t develop things locally and likely are on a box with all sorts of things tracking your usage and acc…

Disclaimer: Work at Facebook Not really sure what you are implying with the 'Big Brother' comment. The remote development servers are only used for writing/debugging code and not for other daily tasks. Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product i…

> Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter?

It absolutely matters. I do not want to give facebook any data, especially about my development work.

The "what does that matter" attitude is the entire reason people do not trust Facebook.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#42

Post by IggleSniggle » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:16 AM UTC

mcny wrote: post #6

flyingswift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: Work at Facebook Not really sure what you are implying with the 'Big Brother' comment. The remote development servers are only used for writing/debugging code and not for other daily tasks. Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product i…

> Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product in the very first hour. No need to wait for the repository to clone, the dependencies to install, and the code to build before you can become productive. I am nobody but I've had this nagging feeling ever since I started working on websites for big corporations about why can't I work on my code o…

Absolutely agree! If it's any consolation, there are teams that make this possible in a "big corporation" context.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#43

Post by whalesalad » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:31 AM UTC

filleokus wrote: post #36

I have such high hopes for remote development, I want this in all my editors/environment. Semi-OT but: How are spinup times for different VM/host options? Would it be feasible to have a beefy dedicated machine with something on it that spins up a VM/container when I SSH to it, with all my stuff on it? Would it be feasible to build something like that with any of the major cloud hosting providers? One always-on server…

Remember that the VM is running on a hypervisor that is on 24x7 regardless of whether there is a virtual machine there.

The beauty of a VM is that it can get migrated around, so those hypervisor hosts can get turned off when load is not there. This is something that is likely happening already.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#44

Post by shaklee3 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:31 AM UTC

mraison wrote: post #17

Very happy about this move. Nuclide’s remote development capabilities were way above anything else I’ve tried (Sublime, IntelliJ Ultimate, VSCode, remote SSH mounts, etc). It’s the only solution I’ve found that really allows you to browse the remote filesystem as smoothly as you would with your local drive (including when you’re also changing the remote files outside the IDE), degrade functionality as needed when the…

What is missing from vscode for remote development? MS released their remote development extensions earlier this year, and everything from browsing to searching feels native.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#45

Post by lovetocode » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:32 AM UTC

I did remote development through Putty sessions using vim/tmux for several years. Would have been nice to have something like this.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#46

Post by shaklee3 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

mcny wrote: post #6

flyingswift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: Work at Facebook Not really sure what you are implying with the 'Big Brother' comment. The remote development servers are only used for writing/debugging code and not for other daily tasks. Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product i…

> Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product in the very first hour. No need to wait for the repository to clone, the dependencies to install, and the code to build before you can become productive. I am nobody but I've had this nagging feeling ever since I started working on websites for big corporations about why can't I work on my code o…

Outside of web development, sometimes you need special hardware or workspaces configured to do development. Usually this can be done in a container, but that comes with its own annoyances. Having a central development server for large compiled code bases is really useful.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#47

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

cwbrandsma wrote: post #14

mychael wrote: post #11

> We’re making Visual Studio Code the default development environment at Facebook IDE choice is a highly personal thing. This sounds awful.

In every place I've been, the IDE choice has been more of a team decision, configuration was personal (some short-cuts, colors, etc). Too much time went into the build environment and other development tools for us, plus if you wanted someone to come in and help (short term pair programming), you need to be on the same page.

> In every place I've been, the IDE choice has been more of a team decision

What OS(es) were you using at the time?

In my experience, IDE choice was a team decision in Windows (and perhaps Mac?) shops, where the build system was tightly coupled to the IDE.

But in shops that develop Linux code, the IDE and build system tend to be loosely coupled, and the IDE was a matter of personal preference.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#48

Post by chrisweekly » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:36 AM UTC

shaklee3 wrote: post #44

mraison wrote: post #17

Very happy about this move. Nuclide’s remote development capabilities were way above anything else I’ve tried (Sublime, IntelliJ Ultimate, VSCode, remote SSH mounts, etc). It’s the only solution I’ve found that really allows you to browse the remote filesystem as smoothly as you would with your local drive (including when you’re also changing the remote files outside the IDE), degrade functionality as needed when the…

What is missing from vscode for remote development? MS released their remote development extensions earlier this year, and everything from browsing to searching feels native.

Yeah, same rxn. I tried vsc's remote dev stuff to try pair-programming w a friend in another state, and was surprised and delighted at how well it worked. It was effortless and frictionless.

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#49

Post by chrisweekly » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

mcny wrote: post #6

flyingswift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: Work at Facebook Not really sure what you are implying with the 'Big Brother' comment. The remote development servers are only used for writing/debugging code and not for other daily tasks. Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product i…

> Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product in the very first hour. No need to wait for the repository to clone, the dependencies to install, and the code to build before you can become productive. I am nobody but I've had this nagging feeling ever since I started working on websites for big corporations about why can't I work on my code o…

tangent to your points: you are not "nobody"!

Re: Facebook and Microsoft Partner on Remote Development

#50

Post by Shish2k » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:39 AM UTC

dorkinspace wrote: post #41

flyingswift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: Work at Facebook Not really sure what you are implying with the 'Big Brother' comment. The remote development servers are only used for writing/debugging code and not for other daily tasks. Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? Personally, I have found remote development awesome because it enables engineers to start contributing to a huge product i…

> Even if they are tracking what tools/functions I am using on the server, what does that matter? It absolutely matters. I do not want to give facebook any data, especially about my development work. The "what does that matter" attitude is the entire reason people do not trust Facebook.

I think you have some wires crossed.

YOU, a random developer working at some other company, or on your open source projects, are not sending data to facebook.

Facebook employees, using facebook's tools, running on facebook's dev-servers, to build facebook, ARE sending dev-tool telemetry to facebook's dev-tool-development team.

"What does it matter?" is referring to the latter.