Cloud9IDE - one year later
I recently revisited Cloud9IDE, the cloud-based integrated development environment. Last year I posted Cloud9IDE Test Drive and I recently decided to give the service another try. These days I'm on an hour-long commuter bus into San Francisco and the thought of using my iPad to access a cloud-based IDE seemed tantalizing. Sadly that dream didn't quite materialize - but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Last month Cloud9IDE's Zef Hemel published All In On The Cloud announcing some cool new features and delving into infrastructure details regarding wish list items developers have been asking for. After learning of the improvements I was eager to revisit the service.
The Cloud9IDE is a masterpiece of JavaScript engineering. Perhaps more so than Safari and Chrome can handle on a first generation iPad. Because I paid for a month's premium subscription I decide to continue exploring the service on my laptops. I use both Windows and Mac PC's running Ubuntu VMs so the idea of a web accessible IDE remains intriging.
If you're a modern web developer chances are that you have one or more virtual servers in the cloud and you use a web accessible distributed source control system such as GiHub. Imagine using a web browser to edit, test and deploy your code updates. Imagine also accessing your servers via a browser-based ssh client. Next, imagine collaborating with team members while viewing, chatting and jointly editting code. What this translates to is the ability to jump onto any modern machine and continue developing your product. All, without installing a single piece of software. Again, from your work machine to your home machine to your girl friends laptop without so much as a USB thumb drive.
Naturally your mileage will vary. If you reply heavily on native mobile development and tools such as Apple's XCode, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET or Adobe Flash Builder then you'll have a greater dependency on tethered development. Hybrid scenarios still have value. For example, being able to clone a github repo and edit files while away from your main development environments.
For developers who do a significant amount of their dev work with HTML/CSS/JavaScript on the front-end and JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP and Node.js, Redis, Mongo or CouchDB on the back-end , Cloud9IDE offers many compelling features.
I expect that Microsoft could do this for their .NET developers on their Azure platform.
Here are a few ways I've used Cloud9IDE in the past week:
Cloned a github repo for a Node.js API server I wrote months ago and was able to debug and test it using only my chrome browser.
Made minor updates to two jQuery plugins I wrote last year.
Wrote a JQueryMobile app to display a mobile friendly business card.
Wrote a quick API testrig to investigate a Facebook issue we were experiencing at work.
Created a Cloud9IDE workspace that connects with my Rackspace Linux server where I host several personal websites. I can now edit pages and access the server via web-based SSH using chrome.
Yes, I was having a good time! Does this mean Cloud9IDE is the shit? I'd say they still have a long way to go toward realizing their dreams. For me, recent gripes include a web based editor that is far from flawless and an SSH client that sometimes produces double key presses if you type too fast.
So it's a work-in-progress that's also highly usable, allowing you to develop in ways which were previously impossible.
My take is that Cloud9IDE has significantly improved over the past year and for 12 bucks a month I don't expect to cancel the service anytime soon. It's way too much fun!
