7 ms·

Show HN: FriendCode – Reinventing coding with the cloud

39 points by friendcode 13y ago

jophde 13y ago
It's awesome when you can't work without Internet! I am traveling around South America and offline docs and editors are a godsend right now.
wslh 13y ago
Nice but the cursor is not properly positiones in iOS6.
- diggan 13y ago
  You probably mean caret? (not cursor since it does not exist a cursor in iOS)
- patman81 13y ago
  Testing it on my iPad was he first thing I wanted to try. I would love it, if I could make small changes while on the go with iOS. But, I'm still waiting for the environment to start. I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.
diggan 13y ago
I was interested in trying it out for doing pair programming. Didn't get so far before I gave up though. * Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work. * Setup demo application, trying to find how to try it out. * After looking around ~5 minutes, found the "open web server url" link * "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url * Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends * Open up logs console thing, blank file. * Closed tab and gave up
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  * Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work. -> Is it a public or private project ? Can you give me the github url ? * "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url -> The "open web server url" link open the port 5000 of your VM, you need to run something on this port before accessing it. * Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends -> It seems there is an issue connecting you browser using websocket.
  - diggan 13y ago
    * Github, public and private. https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/angularblog https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/angularblog is one public I tried. * Aha, shouldn't be impossible to add a better error message or a hint that you actually need to start the software? Starting a new application, it's not clear that nothing is done for you. For example, when starting the NodeJS template, it would be cool if it ran npm install and node web.js or something like that so the setup would to be. * Websockets shouldn't be a problem, running Chrome Canary and Firefox Aurora. This looks very similar to Koding what I can see. Could you tell me of any differences you know about between this and Koding?
    - SamyPesse 13y ago
      * Ok thank you, I'll look into this issue. * Thank you for the feedback, we need to improve this by adding an "auto-execution" system (in a way like Heroku) which detect the project type and run it (install package.json dependencies for node, requirements.txt for python, ... and start the application). * Ok, it's probably an issue on our side. * We are focus on simplicity and trying to not just bring the local IDE on your browser, but really add innovation that can only come from a cloud IDE : realtime collaboration, ... We are building FriendCode as a collaborative workspace editor in the cloud : each projects is a GIT repository and each branches is a workspace. Koding is more like a local IDE in the cloud : each user has its own VM and do whatever he wants inside, FriendCode gives a clear separation between projects : each projects has its own environment.
k__ 13y ago
Heh, still got the chrome plugin, which replaces 'the cloud' with 'my butt'. It makes tech-news a charm to read.
- ToastyMallows 13y ago
  Link for the lazy: https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt
- tomvo 13y ago
  haha, forgot about that one.
epaga 13y ago
Looks very impressive. Can't get a new blank Java project to compile or run yet though (java: command not found). May be doing something wrong.
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Sorry, We don't include java in the current VMs, but it's coming soon.
  - epaga 13y ago
    OK, too bad. Any other limitations to know about? Like I said: looks very promising!
    - SamyPesse 13y ago
      Right now, you can't install anything in the VM using apt-get (because you can't be root), but a solution to this will come soon to let you install anything you need.
lynchdt 13y ago
I signed up and created a sinatra and java app. Wouldn't usually be one to but a downer on a new product but the whole process was quite buggy. Great idea though.
esw 13y ago
This looks incredibly slick, but I'm still seeing "FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds" after about ten minutes of waiting. I clicked in from the large graphic on the home page (using FF 24.0).
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Thank you, it's possible that there is some issues booting a new VM for your project because of the amount of VMs already booted, we are working on these issues.
cyrus_ 13y ago
Seems very similar to Nitrous.IO.
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  We are more focus on bringing simplicity and more collaboration to the developer environment in the cloud, and nitrous is more focus on cloning the local developer environment to the cloud.
IanCal 13y ago
Looks cool, but I haven't been able to make a new workspace so far, everything's just waiting. I assume you've had quite a traffic bump.
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Yes, really sorry about this...
  - IanCal 13y ago
    Not a problem, I'll try again later or in a few days (repeatedly trying to load things probably isn't going to help matters). My wife is learning to code, and this might be a good step on from codeacademy where she can actually make a website and get it hosted with minimal fuss.
WithTeeth 13y ago
This looks great! I use Cloud9 right now for all my development; can you tell me if this is different or just an alternative? The collaboration looks more advanced than Cloud9's for one
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Yes, we're more focus on realtime collaboration and simplicity (more simpler to deploy to PaaS like Heroku, Openshift, etc, and simpler to use with GitHub and BitBucket).
af3 13y ago
"Goodbye the cloud – Reinventing coding with the Old Editor" -- Sublime Text 3 coming Oct 9th to all theaters in your area!
- davexunit 13y ago
  Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too.
  - shawabawa3 13y ago
    > Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too. Why? I have tried a huge number of editors including vim and emacs. Sublime is by far my favourite, but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS? Fuck that
    - davexunit 13y ago
      >but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS? Yes. >Fuck that Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two.
      - shawabawa3 13y ago
        > Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two. ..or 10, or 20. Or until it's open sourced The developer has said multiple times that if it ever comes to a point where he no longer wants to develop it he'll open source it. Either way, it's the best editor right now for me. If it stopped being supported today, it would still be the best editor for me. I will continue to use it until it isn't.
        davexunit 13y ago
        The main problem is that the developers do not respect your freedom. When there are plentiful free replacements, I see no reason to use proprietary software.
benjy1 13y ago
Looks like a great service, maybe add a subscribe to your homepage for people who are having issues creating a workspace. I'll check back later. Great work though, looks very nice!
showsover 13y ago
What value does this add to a local IDE? With my local IDE I can still program when the internet (or any one hop between my pc and your servers) goes down. A friend invited me to his workspace and all I got was an email containing the following: > Code with me on https://friendco.de https://friendco.de
- WithTeeth 13y ago
  This is not the place for debating the value of cloud IDEs - they're out there, whether this one, cloud9, koding, or codeanywhere. This is the place to provide feedback on this particular product within that category. Let's not reinforce the stereotype of HN commenters if possible.
  - benologist 13y ago
    This is exactly the place to debate the value of a product we're being shown. That feedback is far more valuable than what the OP will get if we dismiss the business model as taboo. There are negative ramifications to using online-only software, that's not the same as a negative comment.
- jmsduran 13y ago
  As a developer who also programs as a hobby, I dislike having to manually download, install, and configure each framework/platform I want to experiment with. With cloud IDEs like Cloud9, everything is already configured for me and just works. For my side projects I find this workflow particularly awesome: pull project from GitHub, program in a C9 workspace, and push to Heroku when ready. My development environment is not limited to a physical workstation, and no time is wasted hassling over configuration issues.
ateevchopra 13y ago
This is awesome ! This is exactly what I was looking for. And i'm sure every small startup teams would love to switch to it. I just have a suggestion for you guys, Create something like a section for small students projects too. Small teams from colleges can learn to work together with this very fast. UPDATE: I'm not able to signup with bitbucket. ?
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Please Can you send me your Bitbucket username and email address at samy@friendco.de.
colinbartlett 13y ago
So this is Heroku in its original form?
cbhl 13y ago
On your pricing page: for Enterprise plans, instead of saying "$ TBD/mo", you should just say "Contact Us" in both spots.
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Good idea, thank you :)
danielgrieve 13y ago
I created a project using the Ruby sample app, but that's about as far as I got (same Setting up Environment problem that others are reporting). I thought I'd try deleting the project I created, but it doesn't seem to do anything. It's also very weird to have a checkbox to delete the project, and then clicking "Save".
- SamyPesse 13y ago
  Thank you for the feedback, really sorry that workspaces are down right now ..
lcasela 13y ago
"FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds"
denshadeds 13y ago
Also creating my environment would take a few seconds. It's already running for 2 hours. http://imgur.com/RLkai25 http://imgur.com/RLkai25 Yup, this is about the time it would have taken me to set it up myself.
denshadeds 13y ago
Before I say goodbye to my editor, here are a few features that are critical, but sadly are missing: - Debug break points. Yes, I can't live without a debugger. - Follow a signature to its implementation/declaration, usually by clicking on it. - Auto completion. I refuse to work without this. - Refactor tools, I've loved these tools since the 90's. - Code generation like getters/setters. ...
eranation 13y ago
Sounds great, but I get an error (simply seeing "Error :(" displayed briefly) when clicking the "Try Now" button... then it redirects to the login page... is that as designed? I need to sign up to try it?

39 points by friendcode 13y ago

It's awesome when you can't work without Internet! I am traveling around South America and offline docs and editors are a godsend right now.

wslh 13y ago

Nice but the cursor is not properly positiones in iOS6.

diggan 13y ago
You probably mean caret? (not cursor since it does not exist a cursor in iOS)
patman81 13y ago
Testing it on my iPad was he first thing I wanted to try. I would love it, if I could make small changes while on the go with iOS. But, I'm still waiting for the environment to start. I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.

diggan 13y ago

I was interested in trying it out for doing pair programming. Didn't get so far before I gave up though. * Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work. * Setup demo application, trying to find how to try it out. * After looking around ~5 minutes, found the "open web server url" link * "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url * Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends * Open up logs console thing, blank file. * Closed tab and gave up

SamyPesse 13y ago
* Login with Github, trying to import project, didn't work. -> Is it a public or private project ? Can you give me the github url ? * "An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}" as response when using the url -> The "open web server url" link open the port 5000 of your VM, you need to run something on this port before accessing it. * Trying to open up terminal to debug, terminal loading never ends -> It seems there is an issue connecting you browser using websocket.
- diggan 13y ago
  * Github, public and private. https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/angularblog https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/angularblog is one public I tried. * Aha, shouldn't be impossible to add a better error message or a hint that you actually need to start the software? Starting a new application, it's not clear that nothing is done for you. For example, when starting the NodeJS template, it would be cool if it ran npm install and node web.js or something like that so the setup would to be. * Websockets shouldn't be a problem, running Chrome Canary and Firefox Aurora. This looks very similar to Koding what I can see. Could you tell me of any differences you know about between this and Koding?
  - SamyPesse 13y ago
    * Ok thank you, I'll look into this issue. * Thank you for the feedback, we need to improve this by adding an "auto-execution" system (in a way like Heroku) which detect the project type and run it (install package.json dependencies for node, requirements.txt for python, ... and start the application). * Ok, it's probably an issue on our side. * We are focus on simplicity and trying to not just bring the local IDE on your browser, but really add innovation that can only come from a cloud IDE : realtime collaboration, ... We are building FriendCode as a collaborative workspace editor in the cloud : each projects is a GIT repository and each branches is a workspace. Koding is more like a local IDE in the cloud : each user has its own VM and do whatever he wants inside, FriendCode gives a clear separation between projects : each projects has its own environment.

k__ 13y ago

Heh, still got the chrome plugin, which replaces 'the cloud' with 'my butt'. It makes tech-news a charm to read.

ToastyMallows 13y ago
Link for the lazy: https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt
tomvo 13y ago
haha, forgot about that one.

epaga 13y ago

Looks very impressive. Can't get a new blank Java project to compile or run yet though (java: command not found). May be doing something wrong.

SamyPesse 13y ago
Sorry, We don't include java in the current VMs, but it's coming soon.
- epaga 13y ago
  OK, too bad. Any other limitations to know about? Like I said: looks very promising!
  - SamyPesse 13y ago
    Right now, you can't install anything in the VM using apt-get (because you can't be root), but a solution to this will come soon to let you install anything you need.

lynchdt 13y ago

I signed up and created a sinatra and java app. Wouldn't usually be one to but a downer on a new product but the whole process was quite buggy. Great idea though.

esw 13y ago

This looks incredibly slick, but I'm still seeing "FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds" after about ten minutes of waiting. I clicked in from the large graphic on the home page (using FF 24.0).

SamyPesse 13y ago
Thank you, it's possible that there is some issues booting a new VM for your project because of the amount of VMs already booted, we are working on these issues.

cyrus_ 13y ago

Seems very similar to Nitrous.IO.

SamyPesse 13y ago
We are more focus on bringing simplicity and more collaboration to the developer environment in the cloud, and nitrous is more focus on cloning the local developer environment to the cloud.

IanCal 13y ago

Looks cool, but I haven't been able to make a new workspace so far, everything's just waiting. I assume you've had quite a traffic bump.

SamyPesse 13y ago
Yes, really sorry about this...
- IanCal 13y ago
  Not a problem, I'll try again later or in a few days (repeatedly trying to load things probably isn't going to help matters). My wife is learning to code, and this might be a good step on from codeacademy where she can actually make a website and get it hosted with minimal fuss.

WithTeeth 13y ago

This looks great! I use Cloud9 right now for all my development; can you tell me if this is different or just an alternative? The collaboration looks more advanced than Cloud9's for one

SamyPesse 13y ago
Yes, we're more focus on realtime collaboration and simplicity (more simpler to deploy to PaaS like Heroku, Openshift, etc, and simpler to use with GitHub and BitBucket).

af3 13y ago

"Goodbye the cloud – Reinventing coding with the Old Editor" -- Sublime Text 3 coming Oct 9th to all theaters in your area!

davexunit 13y ago
Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too.
- shawabawa3 13y ago
  > Please use a free editor instead. I recommend Emacs. Vim is fine, too. Why? I have tried a huge number of editors including vim and emacs. Sublime is by far my favourite, but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS? Fuck that
  - davexunit 13y ago
    >but I shouldn't use it because it isn't FOSS? Yes. >Fuck that Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two.
    - shawabawa3 13y ago
      > Have fun when it's no longer supported in a year or two. ..or 10, or 20. Or until it's open sourced The developer has said multiple times that if it ever comes to a point where he no longer wants to develop it he'll open source it. Either way, it's the best editor right now for me. If it stopped being supported today, it would still be the best editor for me. I will continue to use it until it isn't.
      - davexunit 13y ago
        The main problem is that the developers do not respect your freedom. When there are plentiful free replacements, I see no reason to use proprietary software.

benjy1 13y ago

Looks like a great service, maybe add a subscribe to your homepage for people who are having issues creating a workspace. I'll check back later. Great work though, looks very nice!

showsover 13y ago

What value does this add to a local IDE? With my local IDE I can still program when the internet (or any one hop between my pc and your servers) goes down. A friend invited me to his workspace and all I got was an email containing the following: > Code with me on https://friendco.de https://friendco.de

WithTeeth 13y ago
This is not the place for debating the value of cloud IDEs - they're out there, whether this one, cloud9, koding, or codeanywhere. This is the place to provide feedback on this particular product within that category. Let's not reinforce the stereotype of HN commenters if possible.
- benologist 13y ago
  This is exactly the place to debate the value of a product we're being shown. That feedback is far more valuable than what the OP will get if we dismiss the business model as taboo. There are negative ramifications to using online-only software, that's not the same as a negative comment.
jmsduran 13y ago
As a developer who also programs as a hobby, I dislike having to manually download, install, and configure each framework/platform I want to experiment with. With cloud IDEs like Cloud9, everything is already configured for me and just works. For my side projects I find this workflow particularly awesome: pull project from GitHub, program in a C9 workspace, and push to Heroku when ready. My development environment is not limited to a physical workstation, and no time is wasted hassling over configuration issues.

ateevchopra 13y ago

This is awesome ! This is exactly what I was looking for. And i'm sure every small startup teams would love to switch to it. I just have a suggestion for you guys, Create something like a section for small students projects too. Small teams from colleges can learn to work together with this very fast. UPDATE: I'm not able to signup with bitbucket. ?

SamyPesse 13y ago
Please Can you send me your Bitbucket username and email address at samy@friendco.de.

colinbartlett 13y ago

So this is Heroku in its original form?

cbhl 13y ago

On your pricing page: for Enterprise plans, instead of saying "$ TBD/mo", you should just say "Contact Us" in both spots.

SamyPesse 13y ago
Good idea, thank you :)

danielgrieve 13y ago

I created a project using the Ruby sample app, but that's about as far as I got (same Setting up Environment problem that others are reporting). I thought I'd try deleting the project I created, but it doesn't seem to do anything. It's also very weird to have a checkbox to delete the project, and then clicking "Save".

SamyPesse 13y ago
Thank you for the feedback, really sorry that workspaces are down right now ..

lcasela 13y ago

"FriendCode is setting up your Environment. It may take a few seconds"

denshadeds 13y ago

Also creating my environment would take a few seconds. It's already running for 2 hours. http://imgur.com/RLkai25 http://imgur.com/RLkai25 Yup, this is about the time it would have taken me to set it up myself.

denshadeds 13y ago

Before I say goodbye to my editor, here are a few features that are critical, but sadly are missing: - Debug break points. Yes, I can't live without a debugger. - Follow a signature to its implementation/declaration, usually by clicking on it. - Auto completion. I refuse to work without this. - Refactor tools, I've loved these tools since the 90's. - Code generation like getters/setters. ...

eranation 13y ago

Sounds great, but I get an error (simply seeing "Error :(" displayed briefly) when clicking the "Try Now" button... then it redirects to the login page... is that as designed? I need to sign up to try it?