As predicted the Cloud IDE race is picking up. Now I’m sure. Cloud IDE or no Cloud IDE it is not a choice. But it is an huge opportunity.
If you have seem my previous posts on Cloud IDEs, like this one, this one, or even this one, you know how crazy I am about their potential. And now they are appearing everywhere.
Just recently Mozilla announced their WebIDE, a development environment for HTML5 apps built right into the browser. The current functionality is cool. But that is not what interests me.
What is more interesting is that Chrome has to be next, a Chrome based IDE that is attached too your Google account, with integrations into Google App Engine. That would be cool, but somewhat creepy at the same time.
The new IDE from Mozilla in my opinion does not hold water to my current favorite cloud IDE Cloud9. But it does indicate a very cool direction in the development world. It’s delivery today is also very weak. You it is not just part of the browser, you have to get the bits from GitHub and then all your application runs will appear in a Firefox separate window. I really want it to just be a part of future browser releases, and something you just turn on or off.
Speaking of Cloud9. They recently made a major update. That includes huge performance enhancements, Docker support ( IDE bleed into DevOps here we come), and more language options. Not to mention the new UI, which I wasn’t sure could get any better.
Oh and what about all the IDEs in products not specifically designed to be an IDE. Like the neat one embedded in CodeAcademy. And the new one that came with the launch of the exciting new Wolfram Language, which by the way if you are a “Data Nerd” ( sorry New Relic, I stole it ) then you have to check it out.
Anyway. We live inside our IDEs, and because we do so, sometimes we do not realize just how much it is apart of our lives. Like breathing. But at the end of the day if developers make a fundamental shift to developing in the Cloud9 they simplify everything around the development process.
Cloud IDEs integrate easier with production and staging cloud environments. They make Continuous integration and delivery much easier. And they make bringing in new frameworks, APIs, and tools for monitoring, and code management a cinch.
The move is not easy however. I know how hard it was to part from my perfectly configured Visual Studio 2013 with all the plugins, and themes just as I wanted it. From time to time I still visit VS to create my basic console based automation apps. But for everything new, I would not imaging turning to a client based IDE. And if the internet goes out, oh well, my power has already gone out twice this summer, I’m not getting work done anyway when that happens. It just means it’s time to explore that thing they call a sun. But if I was really crazy, because it’s a cloud IDE, I can code on my phone or table over my cell network.
What do you think? Are you ready to make the jump to Cloud based development environments? If not, why?
