6 ms·

vscode ate everyone's lunch in this department.

taeric 5y ago
How? Tramp has been working at this level for well over a decade, if I'm not mistaken. And you don't have to have anything installed in the "host" that you are connecting to.
- Scarbutt 5y ago
  When your dev environment is on a remote server, the DX of vscode is superior, everything just works(like all your plugins), it's seamless and fast. Tramp is great for editing some remote files here and there, but to match vscode you will have to put a lot of effort to make everything feel equally fast and make all your packages work. Even then it won't feel as seamless as vscode because it "cheats" by installing a remote component, and I don't find that to be a valid complaint since you are already installing your whole dev environment in the remote server. Having said that (I'm not a vscode user), what I always do is use Emacs on the remote server inside tmux. For me that's better and superior to the vscode remote plugin, my dev environment is local to my editor.
  - taeric 5y ago
    If you install any auxiliary dev tools on the remote, it will work just as seamlessly. Git, lsp, etc. I confess that you need a solid ssh connection. But for the most part it has been great for a long time.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
    I hate hearing the 'everything just works', because it 'just works' until it doesn't. Apple users use the same term until their software no longer just works.
- squiddev 5y ago
  If you're working on very slow network connections, or the network just dies entirely, it's not uncommon for Emacs just to hang entirely. You then have to kill Emacs from another terminal. At the time I was running exwm (an Emacs window manager), which made the whole thing even more painful. Emacs is powerful, but polish is not its strong point. That said, this was a few years ago now. Things may have improved in 26.1 when threads were introduced, and async got even easier.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I can concur that a slow connection is bad. It shouldn't hang entirely, as C-g should still get you response back. That said, it will hiccup bad and a save needs a round trip, regardless.
- ithrow 5y ago
  Every time you save your edits Tramp makes a new connection to the remote server, it's slow(1sec vs 1ms) and becomes annoying waiting for the save all the time. For doing quick edits it doesn't matter but for doing dev all day it does.
  - hibbelig 5y ago
    Tramp offers different "connection methods" with different characteristics. For example, the scp connection method uses scp to copy files to/from the remote machine, and this implies a new ssh connection each time. But the ssh connection method transfers the files inline, using base64 or uu encoding, and then you do not need a new connection each time the file is read or written.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    Configuring OpenSSH's ControlMaster setting here makes an enormous difference. Summary: it keeps a connection open for a while in case you want to connect to the same machine again. If you do, it reuses that connection so the new one is nearly instant.
    - Scarbutt 5y ago
      I'll give it a try, thanks.
      - kstrauser 5y ago
        Examples, starting with a new connection to a server I haven't accessed recently: ᐅ time ssh myserver exit Executed in 1.66 secs Now visiting it again uses the existing connection: ᐅ time ssh mastodon exit Executed in 55.89 millis
        kstrauser 5y ago
        (Assume the hostname is identical in both cases. I edited one and not the other. Oops!)
- criddell 5y ago
  > How? Microsoft has done a lot better job promoting VSCode than GNU has promoting Emacs for the past few years. More mindshare among influential developers / evangelists has lead to massive increases in adoption which leads to better extensions which in turn fuels more adoption. It probably doesn't hurt that VSCode uses the MIT license.
  - ithrow 5y ago
    The vscode remote plugin is developed by microsoft and it's closed source. I can see why, it gives them a competitive advantage over all rival IDEs.
ak217 5y ago
Yes, the vscode remote development plugin is a game changer. It's the new benchmark for how client-server IDEs should work. I am (and more importantly, my team is) no longer constrained to the terminal and memorizing incredibly obscure emacs or vi commands to get stuff done on a remote instance. There is no input lag because vscode keeps all the IDE UI local while doing all the heavy lifting remotely. And to the article's point, it treats the remote as "cattle not pets": all of my vscode settings and preferences are local and synced to github, and any time I connect to a new instance, it's able to reinitialize all of my vscode remote state from scratch. Tramp may have been able to do some of that before... but its accessibility was lacking.
- dangom 5y ago
  I'd love to see a workflow comparison between emacs, vim (with remote work via neovim's tcp support + neovide) and vscode. I'm currently using Emacs and have a pretty decent setup for remote work with jupyter-emacs and tramp, and it's pretty much 0 overhead to run the same code on multiple remotes, or have the same remote run code stored in multiple places. With that said, all abstractions end if my SSH connection breaks, since remote stuff dies on disconnect. With neovim the remote can run inside of a tmux pane, so disconnections are not really a problem, but my vim skills are as of yet not as great. I haven't used VS code yet, simply because of lack of time in relearning another editor. In which particular way do you feel like VS code remote plugin is superior to the alternatives? And is there anything lacking in your VS code experience as of today?
  - ak217 5y ago
    I don't think the level of integration between tramp and other essential emacs plugins (flycheck, jedi, magit, etc.) is comparable to vscode. In vscode, entire plugins responsible for this stuff are sent over to run on the remote, leaving the local to run the UI - but also to keep all the settings and state. In emacs I have to either add pretty complicated scripts to my .emacs just to get stuff to play together if it's even possible at all, or stay in the terminal and run it all on the remote (and put up with the lag, and re-mount/upload my configuration when a new instance starts). For the longest time I used emacs on the remote and pycharm/jetbrains locally (and was a vscode skeptic) - that changed once I saw what the remote dev plugin was capable of (jetbrains doesn't have an equivalent). I still use emacs in the terminal on remotes for quick text editing, but for project work vscode works better specifically because it's easier to resume on disconnect (one-click restore of all state) and easier to configure. I use tmux in the vscode terminal to resume remote shell sessions. More importantly, it's a lot easier to onboard others to vscode because the IDE as a whole is more discoverable, more user-friendly, and follows platform conventions more closely compared to emacs or vi. The one big feature that I miss in vscode is tab key behavior/intelligent indentation. Emacs does this way better - tab just does what I mean, instead of inserting a useless literal tab or spaces.
daptaq 5y ago
Modulo being a proprietary extention.

How? Tramp has been working at this level for well over a decade, if I'm not mistaken. And you don't have to have anything installed in the "host" that you are connecting to.

Scarbutt 5y ago
When your dev environment is on a remote server, the DX of vscode is superior, everything just works(like all your plugins), it's seamless and fast. Tramp is great for editing some remote files here and there, but to match vscode you will have to put a lot of effort to make everything feel equally fast and make all your packages work. Even then it won't feel as seamless as vscode because it "cheats" by installing a remote component, and I don't find that to be a valid complaint since you are already installing your whole dev environment in the remote server. Having said that (I'm not a vscode user), what I always do is use Emacs on the remote server inside tmux. For me that's better and superior to the vscode remote plugin, my dev environment is local to my editor.
- taeric 5y ago
  If you install any auxiliary dev tools on the remote, it will work just as seamlessly. Git, lsp, etc. I confess that you need a solid ssh connection. But for the most part it has been great for a long time.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  I hate hearing the 'everything just works', because it 'just works' until it doesn't. Apple users use the same term until their software no longer just works.
squiddev 5y ago
If you're working on very slow network connections, or the network just dies entirely, it's not uncommon for Emacs just to hang entirely. You then have to kill Emacs from another terminal. At the time I was running exwm (an Emacs window manager), which made the whole thing even more painful. Emacs is powerful, but polish is not its strong point. That said, this was a few years ago now. Things may have improved in 26.1 when threads were introduced, and async got even easier.
- taeric 5y ago
  I can concur that a slow connection is bad. It shouldn't hang entirely, as C-g should still get you response back. That said, it will hiccup bad and a save needs a round trip, regardless.
ithrow 5y ago
Every time you save your edits Tramp makes a new connection to the remote server, it's slow(1sec vs 1ms) and becomes annoying waiting for the save all the time. For doing quick edits it doesn't matter but for doing dev all day it does.
- hibbelig 5y ago
  Tramp offers different "connection methods" with different characteristics. For example, the scp connection method uses scp to copy files to/from the remote machine, and this implies a new ssh connection each time. But the ssh connection method transfers the files inline, using base64 or uu encoding, and then you do not need a new connection each time the file is read or written.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  Configuring OpenSSH's ControlMaster setting here makes an enormous difference. Summary: it keeps a connection open for a while in case you want to connect to the same machine again. If you do, it reuses that connection so the new one is nearly instant.
  - Scarbutt 5y ago
    I'll give it a try, thanks.
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      Examples, starting with a new connection to a server I haven't accessed recently: ᐅ time ssh myserver exit Executed in 1.66 secs Now visiting it again uses the existing connection: ᐅ time ssh mastodon exit Executed in 55.89 millis
      - kstrauser 5y ago
        (Assume the hostname is identical in both cases. I edited one and not the other. Oops!)
criddell 5y ago
> How? Microsoft has done a lot better job promoting VSCode than GNU has promoting Emacs for the past few years. More mindshare among influential developers / evangelists has lead to massive increases in adoption which leads to better extensions which in turn fuels more adoption. It probably doesn't hurt that VSCode uses the MIT license.
- ithrow 5y ago
  The vscode remote plugin is developed by microsoft and it's closed source. I can see why, it gives them a competitive advantage over all rival IDEs.

ak217 5y ago

Yes, the vscode remote development plugin is a game changer. It's the new benchmark for how client-server IDEs should work. I am (and more importantly, my team is) no longer constrained to the terminal and memorizing incredibly obscure emacs or vi commands to get stuff done on a remote instance. There is no input lag because vscode keeps all the IDE UI local while doing all the heavy lifting remotely. And to the article's point, it treats the remote as "cattle not pets": all of my vscode settings and preferences are local and synced to github, and any time I connect to a new instance, it's able to reinitialize all of my vscode remote state from scratch. Tramp may have been able to do some of that before... but its accessibility was lacking.

dangom 5y ago
I'd love to see a workflow comparison between emacs, vim (with remote work via neovim's tcp support + neovide) and vscode. I'm currently using Emacs and have a pretty decent setup for remote work with jupyter-emacs and tramp, and it's pretty much 0 overhead to run the same code on multiple remotes, or have the same remote run code stored in multiple places. With that said, all abstractions end if my SSH connection breaks, since remote stuff dies on disconnect. With neovim the remote can run inside of a tmux pane, so disconnections are not really a problem, but my vim skills are as of yet not as great. I haven't used VS code yet, simply because of lack of time in relearning another editor. In which particular way do you feel like VS code remote plugin is superior to the alternatives? And is there anything lacking in your VS code experience as of today?
- ak217 5y ago
  I don't think the level of integration between tramp and other essential emacs plugins (flycheck, jedi, magit, etc.) is comparable to vscode. In vscode, entire plugins responsible for this stuff are sent over to run on the remote, leaving the local to run the UI - but also to keep all the settings and state. In emacs I have to either add pretty complicated scripts to my .emacs just to get stuff to play together if it's even possible at all, or stay in the terminal and run it all on the remote (and put up with the lag, and re-mount/upload my configuration when a new instance starts). For the longest time I used emacs on the remote and pycharm/jetbrains locally (and was a vscode skeptic) - that changed once I saw what the remote dev plugin was capable of (jetbrains doesn't have an equivalent). I still use emacs in the terminal on remotes for quick text editing, but for project work vscode works better specifically because it's easier to resume on disconnect (one-click restore of all state) and easier to configure. I use tmux in the vscode terminal to resume remote shell sessions. More importantly, it's a lot easier to onboard others to vscode because the IDE as a whole is more discoverable, more user-friendly, and follows platform conventions more closely compared to emacs or vi. The one big feature that I miss in vscode is tab key behavior/intelligent indentation. Emacs does this way better - tab just does what I mean, instead of inserting a useless literal tab or spaces.

daptaq 5y ago

Modulo being a proprietary extention.