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Comment by lobo42 | Hacker News Reader

The real killer app is not using an IDE in the browser but using disposable, automated dev environments. I've written a blog post about:

https://dev.to/svenefftinge/continuous-dev-environments-the-...

(Disclaimer: I work on gitpod.io which is similar to Visual Studio Online)

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I would like that. My work machine just crashed so I had to reimage it and then install all dev tools. Getting all the SQL server installs, Visual studio and a lot of other tools and their configuration back takes several days. It would be nice if we could set up a template for a full dev environment that everybody can use. I know a lot of companies have that but you need management to understand the issue which is often not the case.

I use Nix for this. I have a library of building blocks that I import and customize to make `shell.nix` files, and then use nix-shell. Unfortunately, the Nix design patterns (though not the language, really) are esoteric and rather unstable, at the mercy of nixpkgs.

If there were a "scene" around nixpkgs the way there is around apt PPAs, everyone could just put a shell.nix in their Githubs and onboarding would be instant. Still, I wish someone would get behind a FOSS project like nixpkgs.

Agreed! The on-demand dev environments are the real star here. Whether you use the web editor is up to you, since we also support working from your existing VS Code desktop setup as well. That said, we’ve found that having the option of a full-fidelity web editor, that’s fully interopable with VS Code desktop, can provide valuable flexibility for many use cases (e.g. making a quick edit when out of the office, doing a “rich” PR review in the browser).

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