Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE
theia-ide.org
theia-ide.org
That's not to say this is a good idea or not, but I think all the comments asking "Why would anyone switch to this from VSCode" are missing the point.
It's absolutely a finished product, GitPod is the commercially available (and white-label-able) version, people are productively using this today, including using VSCode addons and writing their own.
> "Why would anyone switch to this from VSCode"
Imagine preparing a Docker image of everything reasonably needed in your dev environment, and then giving your developers one click access to be totally set up with company-standard configuration. The IDE goes from wild-west everyone working their own way, to something that can be supported, where new devs can be brought up to speed in days instead of weeks, something with real consistency.
What this replaced was madness. We could never train anyone up before. We couldn't sit with each other and debug stuff. Agreeing on how things will work is key on a team that expects to do things like pairs programming, even if it means everyone sacrifices a bit of muscle memory.
At the end of the day, after who knows how much effort, this thing looks IDENTICAL to VS Code. So what was the point of all the work, apart from Not-Invented-Here? VS Code is MIT licensed. So what exactly is the concern about one company running it? Anyone can fork it and do whatever they want.
Nowadays the WSL basically made Windows my all-in-one development environment. My stack is WSL, docker and Jetbrains IDEs (but the latter is just a matter of personal taste). I haven't touched my Linux desktop in over a year.
Personally, for my workflow, I no longer see a benefit in running a cloud IDE. But maybe that for junior or aspiring devs a cloud IDE will make it much more easy to get started.
But now, thanks to WSL I have turned that around. I now run Windows so I can run the windows-only debuggers natively, and still have all the unix tools available through the WSL CLI.
Admittedly I do not do much embedded development anymore, but I'm pretty sure I could launch Windows ICD tools from the WSL CLI.
I think it’s never going to happen. It’s the complete antithesis of everything that Apple stands for as a company.
The easiest thing would probably be to virtualize the OS X kernel.
You can try out this demo I put up: http://hr.gs/theia-demo
When in the test, click on the top right: "Use the online Web-IDE" option to see it. It'll be open for 20 minute sessions for the next day. If you see an "cannot provision" error, it may be the rate limiter, so try post a couple minutes.
Youtube also has a few theia videos which could give you a similar idea on the experience.
Whilst it's healthy to have competition, I'm not sure a rip-off of VS Code is in the spirit of open source. Did they try to work with the team at Microsoft to improve VS Code before forking it?
I'm extremely happy with its development, too; I think the team behind it has done as good a job as I have personally ever seen of both a.) delivering consistent improvements that excite the daily users, and b.) running an open source project.
Still, I absolutely think we are all better off with a vendor-nonspecific, open-source focused competitor.
I mean, once upon a time Microsoft Internet Explorer was the best browser for the Mac, too. There's probably enough awesome in the VS Code project to keep it from being corrupted by Microsoft's corporate priorities — and competition will help keep it that way, in addition to providing a possible alternative if that doesn't happen.
I bought it and gave it a whirl, but I went back.
Mainly because VS Code is much faster, and has a more normal UI (native open/save dialogs, way way better file browser, etc).
Also because the development velocity seems much faster. Every single VS Code major update has goodies in it that I personally want (plus blah blah whatever that I don't) and they come out once a month almost!
But I am curious (especially since I do still have the WebStorm license) what are some of the "IDE goodies" that give WebStorm the advantage in your view?
Everything I need is on Ctrl+p or Ctrl+shift+p.
vscode is like sublime to me, just seems the language completion got useful.
As an open source project maintainer, I don't think it's necessary or easy to do that. Project teams and maintainers have different goals and sometimes it's much easier to fork and evolve without stepping on each other's toes. I'd even say that's the strength of open sourcing software under the right license.
I mean... not really, no?! It's MIT licensed and fits any definition of OSS I've ever seen.
AFAIK, the only non-OSS part is the installer.
Then there are proprietary extensions, like the "remote" extension (1) that competes with Theia's open source solution.
Also see open source vs FOSS (2)
I don't see the problem with proprietary extensions - any open plugin mechanism will have at least some proprietary extensions (by the primary maintainer, or by third parties), including Theia's if it gains enough traction.
- It's not Theia versus VS Code
- Theia is not an "open-source alternative to VS Code"
- Theia is not a "rip-off of VS Code"
While confrontational narratives are appealing, it's more subtle than that: Theia is based on VS Code to address a different kind of need.
Much like TypeScript doesn't try to replace JavaScript, but builds on JS to address the need for type safety, Theia doesn't try to replace VS Code, but builds on VS Code to address the need for a framework to build IDEs for desktop (e.g. Arduino Pro, Arm mbed...) and for the cloud (e.g. Gitpod, Google Cloud Shell...).
VS Code is welcome to backport anything they like
They can't, as Theia contributors haven't necessarily signed the Microsoft CLA.
For example I'm pretty sure Ford doesn't consult with Toyota before they introduce a new model.
If our working definition of rip-off is work alike that replicates the interface without sharing code, then I would say that open source has an incredibly long history of building through ripping off. Linux is a rip-off of MINIX is a rip-ff of Unix, GNU is a rip-off of Unix, various graphical interfaces over the years have been copies of commercial offerings. Copying VSC is absolutely in the spirit of Open Source.
I found on these 3 differences vs vscode on the website, but for a Desktop programmer I see in these differences no reason to change.
"The most significant differences are: Theia's architecture is more modular and allows for way more customizations, Theia is designed from the ground to run on Desktop and Cloud, and Theia is developed under a vendor-neutral Open-Source Foundation."
Eclipse Foundation, IBM. When I was still doing Java the only good thing that ever came out of Eclipse was proberly SWT. And I remember every single Eclipse product they were competing with Sun's default option, and failed to gain much traction.
So while Theia is Vendor-neutral and open source, I think Microsoft is a much better bet on this one.
Eclipse was/is de facto the standard IDE for Java and JavaEE development, not to mention it was/is widely used as an IDE for C development. You can still find prebuilt packages [0] that quickly get you off ground. I've built commercial products with Eclipse RAP [1] that are still used today. Eclipselink [2] for persistence is also a great tool. Eclipse EMF [4] for modeling - and I've used that A LOT when building databases and model structures for businesses.
I have since then moved to other languages and tools, but much of today's software was made possible by the Eclipse team. And I thank them for all their great work.
0 - https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/
1 - https://www.eclipse.org/rap/
3 - https://www.eclipse.org/eclipselink/
4 - https://eclipsesource.com/technology/modeling/#emf
(edit: added EMF)
Was it really de facto? Didn't it lost to Netbeans? I remember there was some rivalry between Netbeans and Eclipse ( along with many other things ) and in the end many sided with Sun ( Netbeans ).
But that was a really long time ago so my memory may be a little fuzzy.
Which means it's an Electron app - which means between this and Chrome, it sucks down tons of ram and processing power.
Really hoping Nova from panic.com is as good as it looks / native MacOS app.
FYI, Visual Studio Code is an Electron app. And it's very performant.
The main problem with this argument is just a few years ago, before Atom and VS Code, most people were using editors like Sublime Text that use an order of magnitude less resources and are still significantly faster than the Electron editors. Regardless of whether VS Code is a better editor, or a better architecture, it's still an interesting question whether the dramatic increase in resources was necessary.
1/8th of your memory for your IDE doesn't sound too bad?
I've seen native tools use more.
Yes, some Electron apps are resource hogs, but many are not. VS Code is a perfect example of how Electron can enable development of a performant, cross-platform IDE.
It's possible to write crappy code on any platform, but some platforms (like Electron) make writing apps that don't suck impossible.
> Yes, some Electron apps are resource hogs, but many are not. VS Code is a perfect example of how Electron can enable development of a performant, cross-platform IDE.
All Electron apps are resource hogs, including VS Code. Just because Slack made it a standard to ignore the fact that not everybody has loads of RAM and that there are other apps running on the system, doesn't mean everybody's standards of performance and UX should race to the bottom.
I use VS Code every day, and relative to it's capabilities, I think memory usage is good. It also starts almost instantaneously, and is very snappy when using.
[1]: Well, this last point isn't all that exceptional on Linux, but it adds up and I suspect that for people using macOS this is a downgrade.
VS Code is unable to scroll text without dropping frames on my MBP 2013. Meanwhile even Xcode is (graphically) smooth as butter.
Also, Theia indeed uses the Monaco editor, and various other open-source components also found in VS Code. The developers of Theia and VS Code actually collaborate on these.
And finally, Theia fully supports VS Code extensions. There is even an effort to make this IDE extension format an open standard: https://open-vsx.org
Back in the days, I always preferred netbeans - it was just more of a product, less of an exercise in object-oriented abstractionism.
Today, I am a happy user of vim (and vscode, if I need to) - I left behind the heaps of design patterns, thankfully. What this feels like to me is a trying to jump on a train, that's long gone.
Also, Eclipse Theia could be the name of the last version of the Eclipse Java IDE since they named every major release of their IDE until recently.
Maybe they should have gone with Theia by Eclipse, or just drop the Eclipse in the name altogether.
However, I'm still evaluating managed solutions, since I'm not so motivated anymore to self-host critical parts of my infra. AWS Cloud 9 is great, but it doesn't integrate the editor with version control and Go support is lacking there (the debugger is really clunky). I've tried GitPod (VSCode based) recently and found it very stable and useful. Maybe I'll go with that.
An alternative setup for a web IDE for vim or emacs users would be, in my opinion, an in-browser terminal hosted somewhere that gives you secure authentication and access to your server. A big plus is to implement it in such a way that the machine will turn on automatically when you access your site-terminal, and auto shutdown if it remains idle for a period of time. This makes it very cheap to host on big cloud providers, which usually charge a lot for 24/7 machines. This feature is built-in on both Cloud9 and GitPod.
You basically just described cloud console in GCP. It's pretty slick.
I wouldn't use it as an all-day IDE, but it's more-or-less what you just described.
Then you've tried Theia, it seems: https://www.gitpod.io/docs/ide/
The UI reminded me more of VS Code than Eclipse (from when I last used it).
A bit from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19466001
A thread from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14687858
Unfortunately, I heavily rely on the VscodeVim extension, which doesn't work in Theia because it hasn't implemented some commands like "editorScroll" yet.
Not saying that is or isn't the case wrt Eclipse.
If people associate the IDE with negative emotions, which a lot of people have for eclipse, I'd say it's fair to call it toxic.
It is also trusted. When I wrote my first Android app, it was the only practical way to write and test. Not sure if that has since changed (am no longer doing apps), but my guess is that a lot of people have Eclipse on their system.
There is a saying that even negative publicity is still publicity.
The most important thing that Theia needs to convince would-be contributors, is that they will still be around tomorrow. Eclipse has been around forever, and most devs assume it will stay around. That has a value that should not be underestimated.
That's true of everything, right up until the day it's gone. I heard the same thing about Borland. And Perl, Fortran, 1-2-3, Netware, Lycos, Blackberry, ... The history of computers is littered with brands which were once impossibly dominant, and now just a footnote.
I thought this was an another attempt, after Eclipse Orion, to get that bloated beast into the modern world.
I use Sublime to edit smaller code bases, and web technologies because it gets out of my way, and obfuscates nothing from me. I use VS if I need to work with larger codebases in compiled languages with static typing, complex build processes, or multiple dependencies.
I tried it about a year after it first launched, but only for a couple days. VS code strikes me as a hybrid between the two, but from what little I've tried of it, my experience has been that it's less snappy than Sublime, while attempting to obfuscate the things the way VS proper does, which I find distracting when working with js/Python/html. When it came to the large CPP code-base I was toying with, its felt slower to work in than VS, and I couldn't find any compelling reasons (killer features) to learn its conventions.
I know quite a few people using code for web development, but they haven't really told me why ("it's just better").
I get the impression I'm missing out on something wonderful here, and I don't want to be an anachronism. But I just don't know why I'd want to switch unless I needed a heavier IDE on my Linux box.
I am not sold on strong typing for the web and SPA's there is just so much tear down rebuild and remodel that I don't know if the gains are there. Given that I take that view I tend to shun a full and robust IDE in favor of a text editor with language support. VS Code is something a little bit more than that, and I it hits a sweet spot for me. When I have to support our legacy Java apps I jump back to Intellj Idea but it's not my favorite and goes a little too far towards the IDE side.
When I do embedded C, I tend to prefer a full blown IDE as it's just too easy to get lost in the weeds of a large C code base. Which is usually CLion.
Now I spend much of my day in Visual Studio Code.
It's kind of an even-more-resource-intensive Microsoft Excel - almost no one needs all the features, but they all need a different subset.
It is just that I have always done a different style of coding for over 20 years. More focused on text editors (BBEdit, Sublime, VSCode, vi, etc) and supporting command line tools.
I have seen the power that my IDE colleagues have for their use cases.
But honestly, I think many of us text editor focused developers where very skeptical of Visual Studio Code due to its VS branding. For myself, I don’t see Eclipse’s brand any better or worse than Visual Studios.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
For that kind of use case having an organization like Eclipse Foundation, Apache Foundation or Linux Foundation on the background adds credibility.
I'd rather rent a Windows Server so that I can remote desktop into IntelliJ than suffer through another IDE.
The productivity boost that you can get from using a great tool that you are intimately familiar with is just way too much to sacrifice in exchange for what boils down to less setup work for getting a new laptop ready for duty.
IME what adds to the bloat is all the poorly-written and/or neglected plugins users seem to want to install.
That is just my personal opinion, and I recognize that tastes differ, but due to years of (bad) experience across multiple domains for a plethora of reasons, I won’t allow and will actively root out any whiff of Eclipse near my codebase.
Yes, others have different options and IDE selection is only slightly less polarizing than politics or religion but... that’s the branding quagmire right there.
They've used monaco[1] which is the editor part of VS Code for their project but Theia apparently is easier to work on a cloud and customize.
I think what they want to focus on is not the editor itself but rather everything around it and where it's run. In typical startups, you try to focus on your core product, so reusing the editor from another project makes sense, as they don't mind the details about the editor itself.
Looks good to me, Cloud9 was rather limited and I missed my VSCode extensions.
Edit: they have their own extension registry, which makes the whole enterprise seem a bit sub-optimal.
Eclipse is also open source and has been ripped off and repackaged into dozens if not hundreds of specialized IDE's. That's what open source is about.