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Comment by watty | Hacker News Reader

I'm not particularly familiar with this application but I do see some benefits of a cloud IDE.

They will enable someone to code anywhere on any computer on any OS without installation and without having to spend time on source control. This means my Chromebook can be productive and maybe even IOS android with a keyboard.

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ChromeOS created a problem that we dont have in the first place; the users have no control of the assets on its own machine.. or at least, have a very limited access to it..

For phones its understandable, they need to be small, so storage space have to go.. but for notebooks, it doesnt make it favorable to the user; its only for the cloud computing religion sake, and to force people to put everything in the could so they can control your life..

Chromebooks/Browserbooks are traps.. we are better with PCS and normal notebooks.. and trying to replace them with this cloud-trap notebook its just silly

So, getting back to the point; You only think the cloud version of this IDE a good thing, because of the chromebook limitations. Limitations it doesnt need to have in the first place.. only for the sake of the corporation behind it, and not for the user..

And this trend was started with the loved-all-around Steve Jobs.. everybody are following.. and if this trend catch on.. we will start to see more and more.. corporation cults.. like new religions; cause our lives will become so dependent on them we are doomed..

I don't have a Chromebook yet, but if I do get one, I'll probably use crouton and put Ubuntu on it and use that as the main operating system (which is what I do on my PC laptop anyway). That gets you out of this walled garden.

You might think we're better controlling these assets on your own machine, but I have endless stories of friends and family loosing files, deleting stuff, failed backups, etc.

There are many people who don't care about the asset being on a machine vs their phone. They just want the asset wherever they are. This is why there's so many successful cloud-based services like DropBox and Evernote.

Why is source code any different? (Not asking about corporate privacy/trade-secrets here, just the concept of a code file as text being shared to all your devices and thought of as an asset you always have access to).

I'm of the opinion that the sooner I can throw away the device I'm using today, and pickup my work with the next device, the better we are. Using my desktop computer here at work. Tablet on the train, etc... and then I want a new Tablet? Boom, just log into my IDE and I can continue coding ASAP. Just like logging in to email.

This wave is coming. Right now big enterprises have virtualized their dev environments into secure environemnts that you can only access via RDP. The next phase for them is offering only secured source-coded private-cloud based editing solution.

Just want to make it clear, that im not against cloud storage, like dropbox; or with google, MS, Apple or anybody else behind it..

What we need its that cloud-storage and backup be a optional solution. Im against cloud storage as a obligatory condition of the digital life.. and the trendy-push for to everything-in-the-cloud movement..

Because this leads to lock-in and really fucked-up concepts of property (like the Bruce Willis case against Apple being unable to leave the tunes he bought to his daughters)

So, cloud-storage? Yes.. but only as an option; otherwise you're locked (and welcome to the neo-feudalism)

I can give you, and anyone that said chromebook, a point but how many people do actually use tablets / mobile devices to do some actual developing? Everyone would love and we can already, just nobody does it because it's not comfortable and we all know that to write something decent you need to be comfortable.

On the anywhere part, it's a very similar situation, I feel like source control it's better because in the end you don't want your code to end up on any possible computer and you have more control of what you can do.

Sales and of tablets and phones are growing massively while sales of PCs are dropping... if this trend continues, wouldn't most people be developing using tablets and other touch devices?

The phone industry caught the PC industry because they were not innovating anymore, its was just about how to make more profits by reusing the same infastructure and just iterating enough so people would buy the "new things" - see Intel.

Now its only a matter of the PC industry learn with this punch in the stomach, and really innovate; once it does it; its back on track again..

Intel board copying Arduino for instance, is showing they are learning..

Also, imagine when they start to create something like Raspberry PI but with movable parts.. where people could change its small pieces with something to give it different functionality according to the pieces used... Even if the big ones from the industry do not see that, some small player will do it.. and the PC industry are restarted with a fresh cool air

You're looking at it wrong, it's not that they're going to use a TABLET/Phone instead of, but part of the workflow. Maybe for a quick bug fix here and there. What about if that laptop you had to haul home for occasional work was just your phone that you plugged into a monitor that had secured access to your corporate VPN where you logged into your dev environment to fix a bug that's hanging up Operations from releasing a new version?

From looking at Codenvy's logs, about 3,000 of our recurring users access the system using a chromebook or tablet. It's only single digit % overall, but it's a number that is larger than we would have thought it would be.

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