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Christian Siemoneit for Codesphere Inc.

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IDE’s are stuck in the past

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 many of us.

As web developers we now work on distributed systems consisting of many different microservices.

Let me give you an example: Not long ago we were all happy to listen to our music with Windows Media Player, a nice and simple desktop application that could probably build and run in any C-IDE without many problems.

Today many people use Spotify or similar streaming services to not only listen to music but also share and interact with the artists.

I don’t even want to imagine the hassle of setting up a development version of such a big software system.

A typical workflow of mine
Here is an example of the Codesphere co-founder Jonas. It is about setting up a new project from one of his friend. Spoiler: It’s not a great experience.

Because I recently got a new development machine I set up my keymap, installed a couple plugins, pulled out my split keyboard and I was able to do my code changes at a reasonable speed (ignoring the occasional wrong import suggestion I always seem to get).

Now the time comes to test my changes.

I begin with installing the project dependencies and at this point my hands begin to sweat as the CPU fan of my modern 2k€ laptop begins to spin at its maximum rate.

The IDE has started indexing a couple million of files and is burning away my battery at light speed. After a couple of minutes my computer becomes responsive again and I try to start the build and run script. But it’s not working!

It looks like some of the linux commands from my colleague don’t work on my windows computer. Also, I accidentally change the line endings from LF to CRLF on the files I modified, which will probably cause a headache later on when I try to deploy this to the production linux infrastructure.

Finally I get some of the microservices I want to test running. They are complaining about wrong credentials and about being blocked by the Azure firewall.

So I whitelist my daily changing IP address and gather the development secrets from the companies file share.

Even now: one of the services is still not fully healthy.

I ask my friend for help… He tells me that that particular service manages cluster resources and can only be run in a kubernetes environment and that I would have to install it if I wanted to debug that.

At this point my morning is over and I leave the desk to get a second coffee and ask myself:

‘Integration’ is a significant part of I(ntegrated) D(evelopment) E(nvironments) — so why are IDEs disconnected from our workflows today?

Let’s fix this

As web developers we always try to port as many desktop apps as possible to the browser.

After all, the browser seems to have solved the problem of software distribution allowing users to work at any place and any time.

Anywhere: Imagine being able to code anywhere, even on your Android tablet without having your lap burned from the CPU quickly burning away your battery.

Anytime: New collaborators could simply click a link and start coding right away. No individual setup process for the specific hardware.

There are more advantages to think of like real-time collaboration, having your settings synced everywhere and simplifying the integration of cloud services just to name a few.

At Codesphere we make this vision a reality.

Do you know the limitations and painpoints Jonas is describing in his article? Let us know! If you enjoyed reading this article, feel free to share it and follow us!

Latest comments (80)

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milahu profile image
milahu

"my windows computer"

found the problem : D

 
eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll • Edited

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 :)

 
eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll • Edited

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 :)

 
eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

VS works as well for NodeJs and many other languages.

 
eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

Many programming languages can be used the same way with serverless on AWS, GCP, Azure, Vercel, and Fission...

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eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

Also feels much like an IDE with great plugins and tmux :)

 
latobibor profile image
András Tóth

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.

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eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

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.

 
leob profile image
leob

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!

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leob profile image
leob

haha "Teflon undies" I like it :-)

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

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.

 
leob profile image
leob • Edited

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.

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

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.

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

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 ... :-)

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

Agreed.

 
leob profile image
leob

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.

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

And that's the exact issue. JS is used too much, even for the things where other solution would be more suitable.

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

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++.

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

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.

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leob profile image
leob

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 :-)

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eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

IDEA consumes much more memory than VSCode

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

IDEA is full-fledged IDE, VS Code isn't.

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

Oh I know, Java based IDEs like Eclipse, Netbeans, Jetbrains/IDEA/IntelliJ are such memory and CPU hungry beasts ... it felt like a huge relief when I dumped my Jetbrains IDE for VSCode, it's so much more lightweight.

Only when you're doing actual Java development does it make sense to use a Java based IDE.

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eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

Why isn't? Features like jump to definition, import suggestions, and so on are supported by LSP. Git, terminal, workspaces, extensions, what is missing?

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leob profile image
leob

Nothing is missing ... I say VSCode is an IDE :-) but as lightweight as an "editor"

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

WebStorm provides better code inspection, refactoring, debugging and CVS functionalities by default (for example, catching unused promises), connection with Jira and many other stuff. It's diff tool is one of the best I've ever seen. Not to mention that all of this is available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate so I can use same IDE for both Java and front-end development out of the box.

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

Yes, the git diff is quite good, I remember that, but most of the other features that you mention, well I just didn't use or need them. But I won't argue, I guess it just depends on your requirements and personal preferences.

What I like about VSCode is that it's really lightweight, and the utter simplicity of "project management" with VSCode - there just aren't any projects! You can cd to a directory somewhere in a terminal and type the command code . and then you just edit, in VSCode, right what's there ... sweet :-)

I guess the philosophy and the workflow of VSCode just suits me, but well just use what works for you, to each their own.

 
eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

Sure, I agree :)
It was the answer on Nikola's comment

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leob profile image
leob

haha I understand, it gets confusing :-) and with this whole discussion I think that a number of distinct and unrelated issues are being mixed up, but anyway

 
leob profile image
leob

"IDEA is full-fledged IDE, VS Code isn't" - well, when I do Javascript or PHP development with VSCode I'm not missing anything, nothing I'm aware of at least ... the only difference with IDEA is that VSCode just feels so much more lightweight and snappy (and on top of that it's free) ... swapped IDEA for VSCode two or three years ago, never looked back.

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković • Edited

I moved from VS Code to WebStorm because I don't have to worry about setup and it has many features which I find very useful for which I would need to add bunch of extensions and spend whole day configuring. Also, it showed as much better solution for bigger projects, especially for refactoring. I don't mind spending a bit more money for good software.

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eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

Of course, there are some cool things in IDEA (I've been using it for 8+ years, so I know about it), but for example "full-fledged" IDE still doesn't support remote development (youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-...) and I can't event open different projects in the same window (switching between windows is very annoying). I'm not trying to say now, that one is better than the other, I'm saying that both have its own pros and cons, it's not fair to say that one is full-fledged and another one isn't only because it doesn't support features you need.

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković • Edited

It is, because VS Code is not an IDE. Visual Studio is an IDE and IDEA is IDE, but VS Code is code editor. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but there is a difference between those two. I'm yet to see an IDE which can debug C# like VS.

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eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

What is the different between code editor and IDE? "catching unused promises"?

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stojakovic99 profile image
Nikola Stojaković

Have you ever used Visual Studio?

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eugenepisotsky profile image
Eugene Pisotsky

No, but I've used IDEA. You claim IDEA is an IDE and VSCode is not, and I'm trying to understand what's there so special that categorizes them like that

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lamka02sk profile image
lamka02sk

To everyone using Jetbrains IDEs. Try switching from Jetbrains bundled Java runtime (JBR) to OpenJDK. It is lightning fast.

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bitforger profile image
Noah

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.

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christian0cfg profile image
Christian Siemoneit

Can imagine what you experienced. Which cloud IDE was the worst you tried and why?

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latobibor profile image
András Tóth • Edited

First of all, I think that the node.js dependency 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 .yaml file for your kubernetes cluster - 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.

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eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

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 :)

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latobibor profile image
András Tóth

That sounds great! Good luck with that!
Maintaining production replicas is a joyless task that takes too much time away from actual coding.

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eliasgroll profile image
Elias Groll

Thank you, that is the idea :)

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christian0cfg profile image
Christian Siemoneit

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.

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jonaszipprick profile image
Jonas Zipprick • Edited

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:

  • Most web apps I work with need internet connectivity to even start up, so I'm already dependant on internet access.
  • Agreed, modern machines are very fast. But those complex, sandboxed apps you are describing are exactly what the web apps I work on have become today.