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I don't know if this counts as the same thing, but I've recently started a Rails-based project on Google Cloud, using the cloud shell and its built-in editor. T
by beat 8y ago
I don't know if this counts as the same thing, but I've recently started a Rails-based project on Google Cloud, using the cloud shell and its built-in editor. This is great because I don't have to futz around with a Vagrant environment or (worse) a straight Rails dev environment on my Mac, and I can do full-strength software development from the little Chromebook I like to carry around.
A Chromebook plus a 100% cloud-based dev environment is a great way to work without having to radically rethink How Software Works.
- Koshkin 8y agoJust to be clear, what you carry around and enjoy using so much is essentially a wireless terminal to a mainframe.
- beat 8y agoIs that a Bad Thing? The alternative is to carry a snowflake environment around with me.
- Filligree 8y agoYou can make the environment less of a snowflake. Nix, to automate software installs and per-directory (per-git repo) environments. NixOS, to do the same for your OS. Gradle, for automated IDEA setup. Or check the config into git. Cachix, to ensure your build artifacts remain available. These problems are solvable, and the solutions already exist.
- beat 8y agoWell, yeah. But it's still a snowflake, a dev environment with build/deployment configuration and needs that are significantly different from production cloud environments. And it requires a lot of setup, and a lot of knowledge to do it well (which I actually have). Writing a bunch of automation to hide the fact that I'm working on a snowflake is not the same as not working on a snowflake. Or, I can do my development in the cloud, in an environment explicitly more similar than my desktop environment. Other than aesthetics, I don't see why this is a Bad Thing. It's making my setup easier and more consistent, and it's making my development environment portable to whatever system I want to work from, rather than binding it to a piece of hardware.
- pjmlp 8y agoAh, memories of those DG/UX X Windows terminals accessed for the very first time in 1994 and VT 100 green phosphor telnet terminals, followed by the freedom of having Slackware 2.0 on my PC a year later....
- beat 8y agoThank Dog it isn't 1995 anymore. (Memories from the same era - hand-rolling TCP stream protocols in lexx and yacc, because XML didn't exist and http was a toy)
- pjmlp 8y agoIt is ironic how we rejoiced with the freedom from the mainframe just for the current generation to go happily back to it.