Show HN: FriendCode – Reinventing coding with the cloud | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: FriendCode – Reinventing coding with the cloud

friendco.de

39 pointsfriendcode48 comments

What value does this add to a local IDE? With my local IDE I can still program when the internet (or any one hop between my pc and your servers) goes down.

A friend invited me to his workspace and all I got was an email containing the following: > Code with me on https://friendco.de

This is not the place for debating the value of cloud IDEs - they're out there, whether this one, cloud9, koding, or codeanywhere. This is the place to provide feedback on this particular product within that category. Let's not reinforce the stereotype of HN commenters if possible.

This is exactly the place to debate the value of a product we're being shown. That feedback is far more valuable than what the OP will get if we dismiss the business model as taboo. There are negative ramifications to using online-only software, that's not the same as a negative comment.

As a developer who also programs as a hobby, I dislike having to manually download, install, and configure each framework/platform I want to experiment with. With cloud IDEs like Cloud9, everything is already configured for me and just works.

For my side projects I find this workflow particularly awesome: pull project from GitHub, program in a C9 workspace, and push to Heroku when ready. My development environment is not limited to a physical workstation, and no time is wasted hassling over configuration issues.

Heh, still got the chrome plugin, which replaces 'the cloud' with 'my butt'.

It makes tech-news a charm to read.

Link for the lazy: https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt

haha, forgot about that one.

On your pricing page: for Enterprise plans, instead of saying "$ TBD/mo", you should just say "Contact Us" in both spots.

Good idea, thank you :)

This looks incredibly slick, but I'm still seeing "FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds" after about ten minutes of waiting. I clicked in from the large graphic on the home page (using FF 24.0).

Thank you, it's possible that there is some issues booting a new VM for your project because of the amount of VMs already booted, we are working on these issues.

I was interested in trying it out for doing pair programming. Didn't get so far before I gave up though.

* Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work.

* Setup demo application, trying to find how to try it out.

* After looking around ~5 minutes, found the "open web server url" link

* "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url

* Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends

* Open up logs console thing, blank file.

* Closed tab and gave up

* Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work. -> Is it a public or private project ? Can you give me the github url ?

* "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url -> The "open web server url" link open the port 5000 of your VM, you need to run something on this port before accessing it.

* Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends -> It seems there is an issue connecting you browser using websocket.

* Github, public and private. https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/angularblog is one public I tried.

* Aha, shouldn't be impossible to add a better error message or a hint that you actually need to start the software? Starting a new application, it's not clear that nothing is done for you. For example, when starting the NodeJS template, it would be cool if it ran npm install and node web.js or something like that so the setup would to be.

* Websockets shouldn't be a problem, running Chrome Canary and Firefox Aurora.

This looks very similar to Koding what I can see. Could you tell me of any differences you know about between this and Koding?

* Ok thank you, I'll look into this issue.

* Thank you for the feedback, we need to improve this by adding an "auto-execution" system (in a way like Heroku) which detect the project type and run it (install package.json dependencies for node, requirements.txt for python, ... and start the application).

* Ok, it's probably an issue on our side.

* We are focus on simplicity and trying to not just bring the local IDE on your browser, but really add innovation that can only come from a cloud IDE : realtime collaboration, ... We are building FriendCode as a collaborative workspace editor in the cloud : each projects is a GIT repository and each branches is a workspace. Koding is more like a local IDE in the cloud : each user has its own VM and do whatever he wants inside, FriendCode gives a clear separation between projects : each projects has its own environment.

This is awesome ! This is exactly what I was looking for. And i'm sure every small startup teams would love to switch to it. I just have a suggestion for you guys, Create something like a section for small students projects too. Small teams from colleges can learn to work together with this very fast.

UPDATE: I'm not able to signup with bitbucket. ?

Please Can you send me your Bitbucket username and email address at samy@friendco.de.

I created a project using the Ruby sample app, but that's about as far as I got (same Setting up Environment problem that others are reporting).

I thought I'd try deleting the project I created, but it doesn't seem to do anything. It's also very weird to have a checkbox to delete the project, and then clicking "Save".

Thank you for the feedback, really sorry that workspaces are down right now ..

"FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds"

Before I say goodbye to my editor, here are a few features that are critical, but sadly are missing:

- Debug break points. Yes, I can't live without a debugger. - Follow a signature to its implementation/declaration, usually by clicking on it. - Auto completion. I refuse to work without this. - Refactor tools, I've loved these tools since the 90's. - Code generation like getters/setters. ...

Sounds great, but I get an error (simply seeing "Error :(" displayed briefly) when clicking the "Try Now" button... then it redirects to the login page... is that as designed? I need to sign up to try it?

Also creating my environment would take a few seconds. It's already running for 2 hours.

http://imgur.com/RLkai25

Yup, this is about the time it would have taken me to set it up myself.

This looks great! I use Cloud9 right now for all my development; can you tell me if this is different or just an alternative? The collaboration looks more advanced than Cloud9's for one

Yes, we're more focus on realtime collaboration and simplicity (more simpler to deploy to PaaS like Heroku, Openshift, etc, and simpler to use with GitHub and BitBucket).

Looks like a great service, maybe add a subscribe to your homepage for people who are having issues creating a workspace. I'll check back later. Great work though, looks very nice!

Looks cool, but I haven't been able to make a new workspace so far, everything's just waiting. I assume you've had quite a traffic bump.

Yes, really sorry about this...

Not a problem, I'll try again later or in a few days (repeatedly trying to load things probably isn't going to help matters).

My wife is learning to code, and this might be a good step on from codeacademy where she can actually make a website and get it hosted with minimal fuss.

It's awesome when you can't work without Internet! I am traveling around South America and offline docs and editors are a godsend right now.

I signed up and created a sinatra and java app. Wouldn't usually be one to but a downer on a new product but the whole process was quite buggy.

Great idea though.

Looks very impressive. Can't get a new blank Java project to compile or run yet though (java: command not found). May be doing something wrong.

Sorry, We don't include java in the current VMs, but it's coming soon.

OK, too bad.

Any other limitations to know about?

Like I said: looks very promising!

Right now, you can't install anything in the VM using apt-get (because you can't be root), but a solution to this will come soon to let you install anything you need.

Nice but the cursor is not properly positiones in iOS6.

You probably mean caret? (not cursor since it does not exist a cursor in iOS)

Testing it on my iPad was he first thing I wanted to try. I would love it, if I could make small changes while on the go with iOS. But, I'm still waiting for the environment to start. I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.

So this is Heroku in its original form?

Seems very similar to Nitrous.IO.

We are more focus on bringing simplicity and more collaboration to the developer environment in the cloud, and nitrous is more focus on cloning the local developer environment to the cloud.

"Goodbye the cloud – Reinventing coding with the Old Editor" -- Sublime Text 3 coming Oct 9th to all theaters in your area!

Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too.

> Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too.

Why? I have tried a huge number of editors including vim and emacs. Sublime is by far my favourite, but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS?

Fuck that

>but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS?

Yes.

>Fuck that

Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two.

> Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two.

..or 10, or 20. Or until it's open sourced

The developer has said multiple times that if it ever comes to a point where he no longer wants to develop it he'll open source it.

Either way, it's the best editor right now for me. If it stopped being supported today, it would still be the best editor for me. I will continue to use it until it isn't.

The main problem is that the developers do not respect your freedom. When there are plentiful free replacements, I see no reason to use proprietary software.

> The main problem is that the developers do not respect your freedom.

Now I just feel like I'm getting trolled.

Doesn't he have the freedom to market his software however he wants? It's not like I'm being forced to use his software, I'm not even forced to pay to use his software (the trial is so unobtrusive that I used it for a year before paying).

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