IDE’s come from a time in which the majority of what we programmed were monolithic desktop applications.
But that’s not the reality anymore for ma...
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Yeah but that's a completely different discussion, not everyone is using C#, a lot of people nowadays use JS both frontend and backend, whether by choice or imposed on them ... the fact that a program can be faster when you develop it in C#, or C, or Rust, or assembly, isn't relevant in the multitude of cases where you're not even free to choose your programming language.
And that's the exact issue. JS is used too much, even for the things where other solution would be more suitable.
I don't know if it's an issue, if it works it works ... VSCode is programmed in JS and I hear nobody complain about it, even though it might be a tiny bit faster or more efficient if it was coded in C/C++.
It's not that much of an issue, but once you have multiple Electron applications opened it can become a problem. Yes, we have much more memory available now but I prefer not to fill it up.
Yeah that's true, Electron apps are memory hogs ... I have mostly one or two open, and with 16 GB RAM it's not an issue. But when I have a couple dozen Chrome tabs open as well then at some point I can see memory filling up and my computer getting noticeably hot. Oh well :-)
IDEA consumes much more memory than VSCode
First of all, I think that the
node.jsdependency and indexing problem is a totally different discussion. I will comment instead on the debugging and managing microservices problem.Reading some of the comments and being familiar with the problem (corporate secret: blame the frontend guy if they can't run your super-duper microservice cluster locally!) I think the problem is that AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and the rest don't provide integrated solutions. So either they create an end-to-end solution with the IDE shipped or it won't happen. But there are privacy, security and vendor lock-in concerns.
There are still people in 2021 who think you should handcraft every
.yamlfile for yourkubernetescluster - because "control". People still want an editor that is not provided by big, evil corporation and expect that it will magically work with big, evil corporation's infrastructure. And everyone is figuring out their very own custom solution for managing services, testing them and hoping they can roll back if shit hits the fan.So I think step number one is not an IDE, but standardizing and completely hiding the variability of the infrastructure. Setup should be as easy as to select with a checkbox if you need a dev, a stage or a production cluster. You press the button and then it creates everything necessary on your local machine to interact with the dev and stage environments. And then the debugging/managing functionality of an IDE will be just pretty UI over existing services. Can't really see without total vendor lock-in.
Agree, we aim to build exactly what you describe.
With the difference that we build the full workflow first, with these steps:
1: private-project-scale,
2: mvp-scale,
vision: production-scale
It's not a vendor lock in because you can just download all the config and deploy it elsewhere (or change and we deploy it for you).
Think of it as a cloud provider that generates your setup where the UI is an IDE :)
That sounds great! Good luck with that!
Maintaining production replicas is a joyless task that takes too much time away from actual coding.
Thank you, that is the idea :)
Thanks for this valuable and educated view. The IDE for us at Codesphere is 'just' a front end. Figuring out all the very own custom solutions plenty of resources and productivity. This is unnecessary in 2021.
In IDE performance, sometimes, means a lot and there's no way that a javascript application is more reliable and efficient than a C++/C desktop app
Well, until you realize that VSCode is a Javascript app (packaged with Electron) ... it isn't that much more than a browser app really, and look how performant it is, it's more than adequate for the great majority of development tasks.
Then when using an online or cloud version of it (with Github Codespaces or equivalent) you'd be completely in the cloud with a browser based IDE. I believe this will be completely feasible, and even enjoyable, in the near future.
Browsers and Javascript engines get ever more performant, even more so when throwing WebAssembly in the mix.
(oh, and apart from VSCode, other mainstream IDEs like Eclipse or Jetbrains aren't even coded in C/C++, they're developed in Java)
Closes eyes and pinches bridge of nose.
You do realize that the Javascript engine in question is written in C++ running natively on the local machine, right? This is no more a "glorified browser app" than Python is. It's an interpreted language, not a website. Javascript just happens to be the language being interpreted.
And yes, I'm aware that Electron is using HTML and CSS for its styling. Once again — files being interpreted. There are other non-Electron, non-JS GUI toolkits that leverage CSS.
Most of the issues with web browser performance has a lot to do with the web browser itself, and with the particular Javascript engine, not the webkit per se. So this is really an apples-and-oranges type issue.
Electron packs a browser which is not much different to your local chrome + it runs a node process.
With a cloud IDE, you can run expensive tasks on many servers.
That said, Codesphere's goal is not to replace your IDE, its meant to replace your cloud provider.
We aim to do this in the long run with lower prices, more automation, more privacy and no setup.
The UI is an IDE because..uhm..yeah we liked the idea :)
Yes, that Javascript engine is probably written in C/C++, but what's your point then? If you run VSCode on your local machine, then you're effectively running an editor or lightweight IDE in the browser ... and if you'd use a cloud based IDE then you're also running an editor/IDE in the browser ... same, or not?
Uhm....server round trip time? Unless it loads entirely locally, and then you have the initial download time more or less each time.
Network changes everything.
Cloud IDEs/editors sound like the solution ... your whole dev setup in the cloud, and you use just a browser to access it - like your laptop is now just a dumb console, as in the good ol' mainframe days - no need for an expensive or powerful desktop or laptop anymore ... Apple and Microsoft won't like it :-)
Tell me one person who actually enjoys developing on an old PC other than because of nostalgia. None. Cloud IDEs may seem a solution for a novice user who doesn't want or doesn't know how to install a proper IDE. Even these JAVA-based IDEs (i.e: Jetbrains' ones) are way better performant than browser-based IDEs. Not an Universal solution.
Not yet a universal solution ... I can see the potential advantages, but this still needs maturing, I don't see myself tossing my powerful workstation out of the window anytime soon. But who knows, never say never, I think this will take time.
It will start with smaller projects and especially with new projects. But sooner or later the arguments for the cloud are just too compelling.
Spot on ... people won't start out by putting their mission critical stuff in the cloud - they will first try it out with smaller projects, then when they gain confidence they'll commit to it for their bigger projects ... step by step.
Fully agree.
Server costs are cheaper than DEV time cost most of the time. Also efficiency comes late in the game, when you have a huge established clientele. And then you can also choose to rewrite only the ones that would really-really benefit from those languages.
At first, we build dedicated tools for TypeScript, JavaScript and NodeJs.
We chose it, not because it is our favorite language, but because it is highly adopted while the tooling is (because it is so new) a pain in the ass.
We are investigating support for other languages like Java, PHP, Deno, and Go which may come in the summer.
Personally, I see languages really as tools and I don't understand all the religion around some of them.
Use the right tool for the job, and if the job is being highly productive in a browser + microservice environment, TypeScript feels very reasonable (e.g. same language in frontend and backend, OOP, async...).
PS: We will be cheaper than your avg. cloud provider as well.
We are leagues away from the level of customization that desktop editors offers : I have dozens of Atom packages and full custom config files. I don't see that happening to a cloud based editors anytime soon.
And cloud editors are slooooowwwww… I'd love to love glitch, codesandbox etc. but when you start opening more than a couple files, performances melt. Maybe yours is different… maybe not :p
Now that your dev environment runs in the cloud is another story, especially when you have a big app. An excellent article on subject can be found here :
Why Eventbrite runs a 700 node Kube cluster just for development
Ethan J. Jackson ・ Aug 27 '20 ・ 6 min read
We are already way faster than glitch, gitpod, and codesandbox (lol), mainly because we designed specifically for a cloud env. Codesphere will hardly run on your desktop (though you can mount a fs and use your local IDE's).
It is not meant to replace your local environment but we aim to extend it with a cloud provider which is REALLY build for developers and the UI is a dedicated IDE which you might not have to leave.
What about the privacy? I don’t think companies would like to share it’s source code.
Security is always an important topic, especially with IaaS.
Not only can the code get compromised but also your secret keys, customer data, etc..
Encryption everywhere seems to the solution to me.
In practice that means using TLS for network traffic, and various tools to encrypt passwords, code and user data.
You can do static code analysis to prevent data leaks during runtime.
To be honest, those are all good practices even if you work with an inhouse datacenter.
But I know that it can be a hazzle setting all this up yourself, especially the TLS certificates.
Codesphere will manage all of that for you out of the box when you stick to certain conventions.
Very good question. Source code must stay secure and that's the case in the pods. But there for sure will be limitations for some companies.
Most people already store their code in the cloud (Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket) ... there's not anything new here really.
Right you are! Only very few companies with super sensitive data might have limitations (maybe even only by law) to stay away from the cloud...
I agree that the article is flawed, but not for the reasons that you mention ... the article is flawed because it claims that there is a problem with IDEs, and then it goes on to describe a problem with the deployment of the app and its services on a local development workstation, so the hassle of setting up and maintaining a local test/dev environment - THAT is the problem at hand ... so, clearly, and obviously, this is not a problem with the IDE as such, therefore the title of the article is a misnomer IMO.
So the issue is not one of "IDEs being stuck in the past" or whatever nonsense - the problem is with the burden of setting up and maintaining a test/development environment on your "local" machine - and the solution (supposedly) is to move that environment into the cloud (which at the same time also makes your dev environment portable across machines, if for instance you want to access your stuff "on the go").
So that is the problem to be solved (if we assume it is a problem) ... "cloud" would be one answer to that, Docker and so on are other solutions. The question where your IDE runs and what it looks like, whether it's browser based, or a desktop app, or whatever, is really inconsequential, as long as you have a mechanism to get at your "stuff" (source code and running app) in the "cloud" or in "Docker", or in whatever environment it runs.
At Codesphere you can get an early access and a free VM when you sign up on the website! ❤️
This was just a personal experience and there are definitly ways to work efficiently on desktops.
For example, I remember having a good time with Java and IntelliJ.
But once I switched through a couple of projects with ~10 microservices and cutting edge technology it took me a long time to set everything up again and again.
Most of the team just settled for a mediocre workflow instead of doing the work of maximizing the benefit from every feature or tool available.
We would have been happy to be able to just click a link and start coding with all the available features.
Addressing your other concerns:
Well, isn't that the best of both worlds then, and a smart strategy? Use native code for stuff where it matters (the language servers), and JS where it's more than adequate (the UI) ... it's the end result that counts, and we can't complain there about VSCode.
Maybe to some degree. I was responding to the "it's a glorified browser app" assertion I hear all the time. Electron is only superficially similar due to sharing some components of the webkit.
As to C/C++ vs. Java or Javascript: an assembled language is always going to be capable of better performance than an interpreted language. A JIT- or AOT-compiled (to machine code) language implementation will be close to an assembled language in potential performance, although the startup time will be by nature slower.
What complicates that is how well the code is written in terms of performance. Badly written C++ will still be slower than well-written Python (specifically CPython) purely because of the principles of algorithmic efficiency.
VSCode is faster than some C++-based IDEs for that reason, not because Electron is particularly prone to being greased lightning.
Sure, we all know about compiled versus interpreted and the pros and cons of those, but Javascript running in V8 is not entirely just "interpreted" or it would be slow as molasses (which it isn't) ... it's a JIT compiler :-)
What I see (and what you concede) is that the speed of VSCode is more than adequate in the great majority of cases. But, I think the whole premise of this article that there is an "IDE problem" is flawed ... I've elaborated that in another comment, so I'm not gonna repeat that here. I think that discussion is more interesting than whether your IDE has to be coded in JS with Electron or in Java, or in C/C++, or in Rust, or in ... :-)
Agreed.
Note that you are deploying to serverless, no databases, no real time messaging. It's a fairly simple task.
Also I don't know how VS works with telling you about hot spot code, screenshot testing, privacy testing, security testing and so much more :)
There is always something to be done :)
I just added a comment elsewhere (if you can find it) explaining that in my opinion the premise of the article is flawed, and that a large part of the comments and discussion are highly confused and are mixing up a number of things ... the problem isn't with IDEs at all, the problem is about setting up and maintaining your development environment/runtimes. Whether the IDE runs in a browser or on the desktop or somewhere else is totally irrelevant!
haha "Teflon undies" I like it :-)
Some good points here. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Thank you!
Sounds like a problem of trying to use windows as you dev environment. Or you can use docker for you dev environments. I hate cloud IDEs. Every one that I've used has been mediocre and more trouble to work around the trouble of setting up a cloud workspace than it's worth.
Can imagine what you experienced. Which cloud IDE was the worst you tried and why?
Never told you to throw it out :) And sorry I did not say that clear enough, I was talking about production code.
It does not front any cloud, it is running on its own data center in germany, soon in other parts of the world as well.
I would love to hear your feed back If you can spend some minutes when we launch :)
To everyone using Jetbrains IDEs. Try switching from Jetbrains bundled Java runtime (JBR) to OpenJDK. It is lightning fast.
Many programming languages can be used the same way with serverless on AWS, GCP, Azure, Vercel, and Fission...
Cross-platform issues sound so familiar. 😂
VS works as well for NodeJs and many other languages.
Also feels much like an IDE with great plugins and tmux :)
"my windows computer"
found the problem : D