7 ms·

Remote IDEs managed by the employer? A deal breaker for me. IMO that opens the gates of micromanagement. I consider myself a fair productive and successful guy,

Remote IDEs managed by the employer? A deal breaker for me. IMO that opens the gates of micromanagement. I consider myself a fair productive and successful guy, in my development job, with gaps of non productivity here and there during the day and I consider them physiological. IMO again, Developers should stay away from centralized coding collaborative platforms, despite all astonishing tech accomplishments I see burnout right around the corner. Plus since I have an M1 development machines that's super performant, that I planned to use for at least 4 years, that's just like paying 1euro/day.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
> Remote IDEs managed by the employer? A deal breaker for me. IMO that opens the gates of micromanagement. Fully agree, this direction sounds like nightmare fuel to me.
DogLover_ 5y ago
I agree with this. However, I see it as inevitable. Big companies want to protect their their IP/source-code.
- feanaro 5y ago
  Remote IDEs will do absolutely nothing to accomplish increased protection, so that would just be a misdirection.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    Remote IDEs will not prevent theft, of course. But they certainly can do things that make it more difficult than simply dragging and dropping a folder onto a flash drive.
    - johannes1234321 5y ago
      They can especially help against somebody finding a laptop with code somewhere.
city41 5y ago
On the other hand, if a company wants to micromanage its employees there isn't much that will stop them. It's possible to get the advantages of remote IDEs without the managerial snooping, you just need to work for a company that trusts its employees. Not saying I prefer remote IDEs, just that they are more a symptom here and not the root cause.
- maccard 5y ago
  Right - an employer who is willing to use cloud based IDEs for that is willing to install something like Teramind to just record your screen and webcam.
  - cultofmetatron 5y ago
    there are plenty of good reasons to use cloud ides. Biggest one being onboarding. New guy joins the team, we can spin up a ready to go system for them to hop in on and start browsing the codebase.
    - hermes8329 5y ago
      The last job I had I was thrown head first into things. Here's a guide on how to set up things. Use your ide of choice and you're off and running. You learn quite a bit on day one about the common flow you will be using immediately
      - maccard 5y ago
        Or you spend two days thrashing around because someone forgot to document a hidden dependency and nobody can remember what it is but everyone remembers that they hit it on their first day.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      If the "new guy" can't set up their own development environment in a reasonable amount of time, I think you need a stricter interview process.
darkerside 5y ago
Seems like you think your employer should trust you but you don't trust them? Not every employer is a nightmare. If you think of it as a partnership (and you have the right employer), work is much more rewarding.
- rapnie 5y ago
  If only it works like that. Maybe you find yourself lucky with a manager that looks at your productivity stats with all warm and fuzzy feelings, but the manager above that sees only ROI, and in your review that productivity dip a 3 o'clock stands out. If you don't have this now, then YAGNI.
- wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  An employer is a soulless construct that exists for the purpose of extracting as much value from the world as possible in order to deliver it to shareholders. I hesitate to call it 'psychopathic' but it's not at all bound by human morals. Trusting any given company is akin to trusting a snake not to bite you if your hand smells like a mouse. You might like to think there is some affection there, but you're simply anthropomorphizing something which is incapable of more than its nature.
  - HatchedLake721 5y ago
    Such a toxic attitude can go two ways. Isn't then an employee a soulful being that exists for the purpose of extracting as much value from the employer as possible with the least amount of work delivered to only provide value to itself in a form of an end-of-month salary? Employers and companies are built of people. Calling them a soulless construct and pretending everyone in the world is out there to get you is not a healthy attitude.
    - kubanczyk 5y ago
      To ease on the toxicity, I think I would replace the grandparent's argument by this: The employee is one person, which you can choose to trust or not. The employer are multiple people. Of these, maybe dozens or hundreds can impact employee's work. You can trust all of them or not. This is the crucial difference.
suchar 5y ago
What’s the difference between company-provided notebook and remote IDE in regard to micromanagement? Employer may provide you shiny new M1 MacBook with all necessary spyware. Even if you use your own machine, you should check every script in the project if it is not installing anything if you don’t trust your employer. Actually, if you decide to use your own computer for work then remote IDE is probably better solution in terms of security and privacy of your own computer. You don’t have to worry that something nasty will be installed (be it malicious NPM package or spyware from employer).

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

> Remote IDEs managed by the employer? A deal breaker for me. IMO that opens the gates of micromanagement. Fully agree, this direction sounds like nightmare fuel to me.

DogLover_ 5y ago

I agree with this. However, I see it as inevitable. Big companies want to protect their their IP/source-code.

feanaro 5y ago
Remote IDEs will do absolutely nothing to accomplish increased protection, so that would just be a misdirection.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  Remote IDEs will not prevent theft, of course. But they certainly can do things that make it more difficult than simply dragging and dropping a folder onto a flash drive.
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    They can especially help against somebody finding a laptop with code somewhere.

city41 5y ago

On the other hand, if a company wants to micromanage its employees there isn't much that will stop them. It's possible to get the advantages of remote IDEs without the managerial snooping, you just need to work for a company that trusts its employees. Not saying I prefer remote IDEs, just that they are more a symptom here and not the root cause.

maccard 5y ago
Right - an employer who is willing to use cloud based IDEs for that is willing to install something like Teramind to just record your screen and webcam.
- cultofmetatron 5y ago
  there are plenty of good reasons to use cloud ides. Biggest one being onboarding. New guy joins the team, we can spin up a ready to go system for them to hop in on and start browsing the codebase.
  - hermes8329 5y ago
    The last job I had I was thrown head first into things. Here's a guide on how to set up things. Use your ide of choice and you're off and running. You learn quite a bit on day one about the common flow you will be using immediately
    - maccard 5y ago
      Or you spend two days thrashing around because someone forgot to document a hidden dependency and nobody can remember what it is but everyone remembers that they hit it on their first day.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    If the "new guy" can't set up their own development environment in a reasonable amount of time, I think you need a stricter interview process.

darkerside 5y ago

Seems like you think your employer should trust you but you don't trust them? Not every employer is a nightmare. If you think of it as a partnership (and you have the right employer), work is much more rewarding.

rapnie 5y ago
If only it works like that. Maybe you find yourself lucky with a manager that looks at your productivity stats with all warm and fuzzy feelings, but the manager above that sees only ROI, and in your review that productivity dip a 3 o'clock stands out. If you don't have this now, then YAGNI.
wing-_-nuts 5y ago
An employer is a soulless construct that exists for the purpose of extracting as much value from the world as possible in order to deliver it to shareholders. I hesitate to call it 'psychopathic' but it's not at all bound by human morals. Trusting any given company is akin to trusting a snake not to bite you if your hand smells like a mouse. You might like to think there is some affection there, but you're simply anthropomorphizing something which is incapable of more than its nature.
- HatchedLake721 5y ago
  Such a toxic attitude can go two ways. Isn't then an employee a soulful being that exists for the purpose of extracting as much value from the employer as possible with the least amount of work delivered to only provide value to itself in a form of an end-of-month salary? Employers and companies are built of people. Calling them a soulless construct and pretending everyone in the world is out there to get you is not a healthy attitude.
  - kubanczyk 5y ago
    To ease on the toxicity, I think I would replace the grandparent's argument by this: The employee is one person, which you can choose to trust or not. The employer are multiple people. Of these, maybe dozens or hundreds can impact employee's work. You can trust all of them or not. This is the crucial difference.

suchar 5y ago

What’s the difference between company-provided notebook and remote IDE in regard to micromanagement? Employer may provide you shiny new M1 MacBook with all necessary spyware. Even if you use your own machine, you should check every script in the project if it is not installing anything if you don’t trust your employer. Actually, if you decide to use your own computer for work then remote IDE is probably better solution in terms of security and privacy of your own computer. You don’t have to worry that something nasty will be installed (be it malicious NPM package or spyware from employer).