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Awesome-live-reloading – A collection of live reloading tools and libraries

55 points by wawhal 8y ago

tango12 8y ago
The origin of this list was when we were creating documentation for live-reloading code you write on your computer, and syncing those files to your cloud dev/staging environment directly. We then realised that there was no central repo of "live-reloading" tools for different languages/frameworks. There's a slew of new tools coming out that are making this trend popular (skaffold, ksync, hasura). Some of which need your framework to have live-reloading and some don't. I'm wondering what the HN community thinks about this general trend of pushing this write/test loop to a hosted dev environment. I think it's a response to increased complexity of bring up a full "microservices" environment on your local machine.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I've actually been using a fully hosted dev environment for about a year and a half now for my side projects and it works really well. I started by using Cloud9, then after I had some difficulties with the switch to AWS Cloud9, I spun up a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet with my entire dev system on it. I use vim and tmux to replicate the classic IDE feel of paned windows. I keep a very minimal tmux config and vimrc so it's super-compatible across machines. DO does cheap backups for me so in case I hose something I can quickly restore, my code is on GitHub so it can be pulled back down, and I can get to it from basically any machine I own with nothing installed locally. Just the ability to SSH is all I need. I've connected from a Chromebook and an iPad/iPhone variously to do small bug fixes and quick push to production while I was away. I can get away with a cheaper/older dev machine because my local specs don't matter. If my tests are going to run long... who cares? It's not running on my machine, so I can close the lid and walk away if I need to, and it will keep running.
ktpsns 8y ago
I'm surprised not to see generic tools on this list which make use of event-based file system notifications such as dnotify and inotify. See https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki or inotifywait (https://superuser.com/a/959040 https://superuser.com/a/959040) for examples. I know this particular API (inotify) is specific to Linux (there might be similiar APIs on other OS). But it is awesome for all kind of build systems, for instance latex documents.
- btown 8y ago
  http://livereload.com/ http://livereload.com/ is an excellent tool (though paid) along these lines.
- wawhal 8y ago
  I will think about adding generic tools along with an articles section about how hot reloading works and what are the related new technologies. Thanks for pointing out.
- anitil 8y ago
  Oh I love inotify-wait. So many times I'll start trying to be clever, then delete the whole thing and replace it with inotify-wait
aksss 8y ago
I was expecting single stage presses, neck dies, powder dribblers, and Sierra load manuals, live. Disappointed.
- hkon 8y ago
  I feel your pain
piracy1 8y ago
https://github.com/johnno1962/injectionforxcode https://github.com/johnno1962/injectionforxcode for IOS apps. I'd submit a pull request but i'm lazy.
jaequery 8y ago
Unless we are dealing with a list just strictly for frontend development(webpack/sass/etc), I'm kinda confused about the list. What about servers and daemons that perform "hot-reload" for you? And fsevents / inotify are the way to go, otherwise you will deal with 1~10+ seconds reloads, which can be miserable at times.
jeremiep 8y ago
Or just use Clojure and get live coding for free. Its far more powerful than hot reloading.
- wawhal 8y ago
  Haha. Do you think live coding is cool enough a feature to move to a particular language?
  - CamTin 8y ago
    Yes, it's easily one of the most compelling language "features" (in quotes because its something more fundamental than that) you can have. Unfortunately, management almost never sees it that way.

55 points by wawhal 8y ago

The origin of this list was when we were creating documentation for live-reloading code you write on your computer, and syncing those files to your cloud dev/staging environment directly. We then realised that there was no central repo of "live-reloading" tools for different languages/frameworks. There's a slew of new tools coming out that are making this trend popular (skaffold, ksync, hasura). Some of which need your framework to have live-reloading and some don't. I'm wondering what the HN community thinks about this general trend of pushing this write/test loop to a hosted dev environment. I think it's a response to increased complexity of bring up a full "microservices" environment on your local machine.

freehunter 8y ago
I've actually been using a fully hosted dev environment for about a year and a half now for my side projects and it works really well. I started by using Cloud9, then after I had some difficulties with the switch to AWS Cloud9, I spun up a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet with my entire dev system on it. I use vim and tmux to replicate the classic IDE feel of paned windows. I keep a very minimal tmux config and vimrc so it's super-compatible across machines. DO does cheap backups for me so in case I hose something I can quickly restore, my code is on GitHub so it can be pulled back down, and I can get to it from basically any machine I own with nothing installed locally. Just the ability to SSH is all I need. I've connected from a Chromebook and an iPad/iPhone variously to do small bug fixes and quick push to production while I was away. I can get away with a cheaper/older dev machine because my local specs don't matter. If my tests are going to run long... who cares? It's not running on my machine, so I can close the lid and walk away if I need to, and it will keep running.

ktpsns 8y ago

I'm surprised not to see generic tools on this list which make use of event-based file system notifications such as dnotify and inotify. See https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki or inotifywait (https://superuser.com/a/959040 https://superuser.com/a/959040) for examples. I know this particular API (inotify) is specific to Linux (there might be similiar APIs on other OS). But it is awesome for all kind of build systems, for instance latex documents.

btown 8y ago
http://livereload.com/ http://livereload.com/ is an excellent tool (though paid) along these lines.
wawhal 8y ago
I will think about adding generic tools along with an articles section about how hot reloading works and what are the related new technologies. Thanks for pointing out.
anitil 8y ago
Oh I love inotify-wait. So many times I'll start trying to be clever, then delete the whole thing and replace it with inotify-wait

aksss 8y ago

I was expecting single stage presses, neck dies, powder dribblers, and Sierra load manuals, live. Disappointed.

hkon 8y ago
I feel your pain

piracy1 8y ago

https://github.com/johnno1962/injectionforxcode https://github.com/johnno1962/injectionforxcode for IOS apps. I'd submit a pull request but i'm lazy.

jaequery 8y ago

Unless we are dealing with a list just strictly for frontend development(webpack/sass/etc), I'm kinda confused about the list. What about servers and daemons that perform "hot-reload" for you? And fsevents / inotify are the way to go, otherwise you will deal with 1~10+ seconds reloads, which can be miserable at times.

jeremiep 8y ago

Or just use Clojure and get live coding for free. Its far more powerful than hot reloading.

wawhal 8y ago
Haha. Do you think live coding is cool enough a feature to move to a particular language?
- CamTin 8y ago
  Yes, it's easily one of the most compelling language "features" (in quotes because its something more fundamental than that) you can have. Unfortunately, management almost never sees it that way.