I like the idea in your Edit. If you manage that, you're on a winner. I'm not technically astute enough to have a serious opinion, but intuitively, it makes s

I like the idea in your Edit. If you manage that, you're on a winner. I'm not technically astute enough to have a serious opinion, but intuitively, it makes sense that a dev environment (particularly using tools like VIM and TMUX) isn't far away from what Heroku is already doing with virtual machines. People are always bunging on about how to develop using an iPad - that's clearly the way to do it. Don't agree on the plateau so far as dev tools are concerned. Would be surprised if you haven't come across Bret Victor's ideas (http://vimeo.com/36579366 http://vimeo.com/36579366). In my view, implementing those principles could really change how things are done. Can't wait to see what he comes up with over the next few years. As to solving the core problem for now: the only solution is to just be really opinionated so far as beginners are concerned. Reasonable minds can differ on textmate/vim etc, but just showing students how to setup one solid set of tools on windows or mac (and more importantly, explaining it) would be a hell of alot more than is already out there. :)