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Nitrous.io Targets Enterprises with Pro Version of Cloud Development Platform

62 points by snowmaker 11y ago

favrot 11y ago
Surface-level, this seems awesome, but I wonder how it works for larger companies with more complex (read: messier) environments.
- raingrove 11y ago
  At Nitrous, we use Nitrous Pro to develop Nitrous Pro, and Nitrous Pro requires a pretty complex setup (minimum 10+ components required to run). We did it by creating a master Docker image that runs Docker in Docker, with sub-containers running individual components. Nitrous Pro allows you to create development environments in the cloud with Docker images, and with the master image we created, we are able to recreate a dev env and onboard a new employee in only 10+ minutes in Nitrous Pro. I won't say that creating this master image was a trivial task, but we provide many ready-to-go templates that are sufficient for most people to get started, and we are actively looking for ways to make customization of templates easier.
  - skuunk1 11y ago
    Hi, I have been a long time Nitrous user (I use it with my Chromebook). Do you have any plans for migrating current users to Nitrous Pro? Thanks
    - ajhit406 11y ago
      There's a free plan on Nitrous Pro, so you can signup to reserve your free workspace (we're rolling out free workspaces, if you pay it's available immediately). We wrote about a few ways you can migrate your data to Nitrous pro here: http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/migrate-your-data-to-the-new-platform http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/migrate-your-data-to-the-ne...
      - skuunk1 11y ago
        Thanks very much!
  - techdragon 11y ago
    At this point I would have just eliminated the IDE from my toolchain and used continuous integration and continuous delivery. That setup sounds obscenely complicated.
ericjang 11y ago
I speak only for myself, but my 'dev' environment more or less amounts to the operating system in its entirety, with access to programs like image viewers, vector graphics editing (i.e. making websites). I still find gnome useful for manipulating files from time to time. I wonder if the future of these ready-to-go development environments will be more like full-featured operating systems (Paperspace) that offer a whole machine in the cloud? Of course this would be a niche case but Google already has CitC images of Gubuntu that they use to avoid similar onboarding setups.
sergiosgc 11y ago
I don't understand the basic premise that a development environment takes hours to setup. You must have production deployment automated, and you should have pre-production and testing environment deployments automated too. If so, building a dev install is minutes, not hours; never ever a day of work.
- callumjones 11y ago
  This depends on both the development environment you're setting up and the skill level. If you're not familiar with the OS' terminal, dependencies or installers then those are just additional barriers to getting down to programming. With a prepared development environment for say Rails or Meteor you can get started very quickly learning to develop with these frameworks. For some development environments it was previously a pain on Windows, while this has changed for Meteor it's still not as friendly for Rails. If you can offload those problems to a hosted environment that's a big win.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jszymborski 11y ago
  On Windows, setting up a dev environment can often be a pain in the ass, so if you're locked in for wtv reason I can see the pain point they're trying to alleviate. Even then though, with things like chocolatey nuget[1] and cmdr [2], windows is heading towards parity. [1] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [2] http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/ http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/
  - ripberge 11y ago
    Visual Studio Monaco is really the competitor to a product like this. It's a browser based version of Visual Studio that can be tied into other cloud services.
  - jzelinskie 11y ago
    cmdr looks cool, but how does it compare to using cygwin through mintty? Next time I reinstall Windows, I think I'll try out chocolatey to see if I can get the `brew cask` experience out of Windows.
math0ne 11y ago
Outside of java is there even really any money to be made in development tools, always seemed like a sector where the open source free stuff is better than the commercial stuff (besides a few small niches of course).
- stickhandle 11y ago
  "Outside of java ..." Surprised by this given a Spring, Eclipse, Maven, Jenkins, et al setup I would think Java dev tools is a tough one to make any inroads.
Wogef 11y ago
Unfortunately Nitrous.io does not work in China, neither does any other web based IDE that I know about. While it's true that it's a tough sell for Chinese companies, there are a lot of foreign companies here doing development.
eumm 11y ago
Nitrious is the great solution to work with unix box, using it for months now and it really hides the pain of managing and setting the environment for Rails app development. The built-in IDE works great too, though would like to see some more tools like refactoring but anyway I like that all it requires is the browser so can work basically from any computer. Yes, sounds like the advertisement but I am comparing to literally days spent on setting up the environment for Rails development on Windows and Ubuntu and my experience with Nitrious where it was like just minutes to get up and running.

62 points by snowmaker 11y ago

Surface-level, this seems awesome, but I wonder how it works for larger companies with more complex (read: messier) environments.

raingrove 11y ago
At Nitrous, we use Nitrous Pro to develop Nitrous Pro, and Nitrous Pro requires a pretty complex setup (minimum 10+ components required to run). We did it by creating a master Docker image that runs Docker in Docker, with sub-containers running individual components. Nitrous Pro allows you to create development environments in the cloud with Docker images, and with the master image we created, we are able to recreate a dev env and onboard a new employee in only 10+ minutes in Nitrous Pro. I won't say that creating this master image was a trivial task, but we provide many ready-to-go templates that are sufficient for most people to get started, and we are actively looking for ways to make customization of templates easier.
- skuunk1 11y ago
  Hi, I have been a long time Nitrous user (I use it with my Chromebook). Do you have any plans for migrating current users to Nitrous Pro? Thanks
  - ajhit406 11y ago
    There's a free plan on Nitrous Pro, so you can signup to reserve your free workspace (we're rolling out free workspaces, if you pay it's available immediately). We wrote about a few ways you can migrate your data to Nitrous pro here: http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/migrate-your-data-to-the-new-platform http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/migrate-your-data-to-the-ne...
    - skuunk1 11y ago
      Thanks very much!
- techdragon 11y ago
  At this point I would have just eliminated the IDE from my toolchain and used continuous integration and continuous delivery. That setup sounds obscenely complicated.

ericjang 11y ago

I speak only for myself, but my 'dev' environment more or less amounts to the operating system in its entirety, with access to programs like image viewers, vector graphics editing (i.e. making websites). I still find gnome useful for manipulating files from time to time. I wonder if the future of these ready-to-go development environments will be more like full-featured operating systems (Paperspace) that offer a whole machine in the cloud? Of course this would be a niche case but Google already has CitC images of Gubuntu that they use to avoid similar onboarding setups.

sergiosgc 11y ago

I don't understand the basic premise that a development environment takes hours to setup. You must have production deployment automated, and you should have pre-production and testing environment deployments automated too. If so, building a dev install is minutes, not hours; never ever a day of work.

callumjones 11y ago
This depends on both the development environment you're setting up and the skill level. If you're not familiar with the OS' terminal, dependencies or installers then those are just additional barriers to getting down to programming. With a prepared development environment for say Rails or Meteor you can get started very quickly learning to develop with these frameworks. For some development environments it was previously a pain on Windows, while this has changed for Meteor it's still not as friendly for Rails. If you can offload those problems to a hosted environment that's a big win.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jszymborski 11y ago
On Windows, setting up a dev environment can often be a pain in the ass, so if you're locked in for wtv reason I can see the pain point they're trying to alleviate. Even then though, with things like chocolatey nuget[1] and cmdr [2], windows is heading towards parity. [1] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [2] http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/ http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/
- ripberge 11y ago
  Visual Studio Monaco is really the competitor to a product like this. It's a browser based version of Visual Studio that can be tied into other cloud services.
- jzelinskie 11y ago
  cmdr looks cool, but how does it compare to using cygwin through mintty? Next time I reinstall Windows, I think I'll try out chocolatey to see if I can get the `brew cask` experience out of Windows.

math0ne 11y ago

Outside of java is there even really any money to be made in development tools, always seemed like a sector where the open source free stuff is better than the commercial stuff (besides a few small niches of course).

stickhandle 11y ago
"Outside of java ..." Surprised by this given a Spring, Eclipse, Maven, Jenkins, et al setup I would think Java dev tools is a tough one to make any inroads.

Wogef 11y ago

Unfortunately Nitrous.io does not work in China, neither does any other web based IDE that I know about. While it's true that it's a tough sell for Chinese companies, there are a lot of foreign companies here doing development.

eumm 11y ago

Nitrious is the great solution to work with unix box, using it for months now and it really hides the pain of managing and setting the environment for Rails app development. The built-in IDE works great too, though would like to see some more tools like refactoring but anyway I like that all it requires is the browser so can work basically from any computer. Yes, sounds like the advertisement but I am comparing to literally days spent on setting up the environment for Rails development on Windows and Ubuntu and my experience with Nitrious where it was like just minutes to get up and running.