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Google Launches Project IDX, A web-based IDE (idx.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/programming

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What if your dev experience was entirely in the cloud?

These days, launching applications means navigating an endless sea of complexity. We felt this pain at Google, so we started Project IDX, an experimental new initiative aimed at bringing your entire full-stack, multiplatform app development workflow to the cloud.

Project IDX gets you into your dev workflow in no time, backed by the security and scalability of Google Cloud.

Project IDX lets you preview your full-stack, multiplatform apps as your users would see them, with upcoming support for built-in multi-browser web previews, Android emulators, and iOS simulators.

As a Vim fanatic, I can't say I'll ever feel comfortable working in a browser, but some parts of IDX seem interesting. I wonder what the implications are for proprietary code.

I do think it solves an interesting problem where you're working on your desktop and decide to move to your laptop and continue working on the same codebase, but don't want to commit early so you can pull down the changes to your laptop.

It reminds me vaguely of Shells.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think a lot of comments are looking at this thing the wrong way. This is not a feature that is designed to make things easier or nicer for developers. The target audience for this is managers.

Managers don't want you to have a unique configuration for "your workflow", they want a uniform workflow that they can just plug you into. They want to replace the unique person that is you with a corporate drone representation of you, as they have done with so many jobs already. When they can streamline your work down to " here is a ticket, push that button and you are ready to go", they reduce the rampup time of putting someone new into your seat to a fraction of what it was before.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A good manager knows that an employee is productive whenever they're comfortable. With that said, I agree. This is an excuse for upper management and C-suite executives to make employee-hostile policies.

Instead of buying developers a powerful workstation and letting them do install their own software and create workflows that they’re comfortable with, they can be handed a Chromebook and told to start producing code like the code monkey they're seen as.

The "benefits" will be touted as:

Cheaper hardware costs.
Developers don't need a powerful machine to run tooling or compile software, and cloud IDEs and build servers are pay-as-used. The reasoning would be: paying $300 for a Chromebook and $25 monthly is cheaper than $1200 for a new machine every few years.
Reduced support burden.
If developers don't need to install their own software, they won't need to submit requests to IT.
Infrastructure security.
Less software is less surface area. Since all the developer's software is hosted in the cloud, their computers don't need to run anything but a VPN, web browser, and restricted user permissions.
"Productivity"
Browsing Lemmy on company time? Not anymore! Your development machines are distraction-free, and we made sure of that with our root CA and enterprise policy settings.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I don't see how the last point changes anything compared to the current situation