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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

From their homepage:

> Cloud9 combines a powerful online code editor with a full Ubuntu workspace in the cloud

This is the first thing I see on loading their website. Is this their main selling point? Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It works perfectly fine on my local machine, and I could even automate syncing if I wanted. Also, I could just ssh into my server and start an editor there.

> Build WordPress, Django and Rails websites and test in 300+ browser/OS combinations.

Is this automated? Because who would want to test 300+ browser/OS combinations manually?

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The reason my team uses C9 is it facilitates remote pair programming in a really nice way. That's the main purpose of it for us.

It also means I can have a nice IDE running on our development server instead of on my local machine, which is handy because I have two different computers I use for work (a desktop and a laptop.) My workspace is not just similar but literally the same workspace on both machines.

> it facilitates remote pair programming in a really nice way

Ok. Do they allow two people to edit the same file simultaneously?

Yes

This is nice. But then again, how do you know when the other person is finished editing so you can run your program? On second thought, ssh and git seem more practical.

It shows you when the file is being edited, when it has unsaved changes, and when it's been saved. It also has a linter that shows you if there are typos. It's a full fledged IDE. It works great.

>Also, I could just ssh into my server and start an editor there.

Hey, you just answered your own question. Beginners no longer have to setup their own machine/server, they can simply create an account on c9.io, they don't even have to pay for it and bam you have a full ubuntu workspace ready instantly without any effort which is very useful for teaching them their first programming language.

> Beginners no longer have to setup their own machine/server, they can simply create an account on c9.io, they don't even have to pay for it and bam you have a full ubuntu workspace ready instantly without any effort

I already have a full Linux workspace ready instantly. I'm typing this in it right now. It's my laptop.

Linux is so simple to use now that my liberal-arts relatives are using it. Why use expensive, legacy, less-powerful OSes like Windows or macOS when Linux is available? Why run something over a net link when Linux can run locally?

Using Firefox/Chrome on a linux box doesn't really compare to getting a dev environment setup.

For a rails app it's not a stretch to have to install postgres, rvm, ruby, some compiled gems, and redis. Then you need to make sure postgres and your rails server are running.

These aren't insurmountable and we can write documentation around it but compare that to 'Log into c9.io, copy this workspace and work on a ticket'.

I work with people that want to learn how to program and I hear feedback that getting an environment setup is overwhelming somewhat regularly. These online IDEs look like they can really combat that.

You could also just start an AWS server, upload an image containing useful tools such as an editor and a webserver, and teach them to use ssh. All could be done within an hour or so. I don't see the big advantage of Cloud9.

well, i just tried it. amazon aws is a hassle to setup. especially figuring out how to qualify for the free tier. its not just a "gimme free access already".

cloud9 on the other hand took me about 3 minutes to create an account, django workspace and to start developing with it.

that is a massive difference.

Ok, then perhaps Amazon or Cloud9 should have fixed this. It should not be too difficult, as it probably requires just some batch scripting.

But I see no justification for creating a complete development platform in the cloud.

Maybe you are not in the intended audience then

> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"?

I have a handful of devices which I like programming from - I use Eclipse Che (the tech behind Codenvy Beta, similar to Cloud9) for some of my projects and I have exactly the same environment on all of them.

There's other ways to accomplish this - sharing dotfiles between machines and using Docker for environments - but a cloud IDE makes it a bit easier and less hassle to set up.

> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"?

It does not HAVE to be. But it is another option and great one at certain situations. Such as showing someone how to start programming, working on small project without having to deal with setup time etc.

I really like it actually. It's not meant to be replacement of local machine IDEs.

I don't know how it's "not meant to be a replacement of local machine IDEs", I think that depends on the person using it.

I've been on Cloud9 for all my work (day job and freelance) for several years now and honestly can't imagine not using a web-based IDE.

You are right. I was thinking about my previous statement later on and realized, that it is meant and is able to fully replace standard IDEs. What I meant was more like "you can keep your IDE if you like it" type of think.

> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"?

Well, how else will they be able to steal your IP and passwords? How else will you be able to go get coffee every time the net's down? How else will you be able to spend years reimplementing elisp in JavaScript, poorly? How else will you get to experience the instability of a web browser while editing code?

Truly, a cloud editor is an advancement on the bad old days when we had editors which ran quickly, locally, with decades of extensions and kept our information safe.

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