The future of Web development with Cloud-based IDEs
We have been using desktop applications like Eclipse, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, PyCharm, etc for the development of applications on our machines. But there are several issues that we face with Desktop IDEs.
1. Mobility & Portability issues
Using desktop IDEs, we are bound to a particular development environment which makes us dependent on a particular system for the development and testing of applications.
Due to this, it becomes a handful of tasks to use any system available to the developer and use it for development.
2. Environment issues
Developers tend to use databases, tools like Redis, Elastic Search, etc, and sometimes binaries that are dependent on a particular environment for their applications. So for someone to develop or run the application, they need these tools configured specifically for the application.
It makes the development bound to the configured systems only.
3. Operating System Issues
Due to an operating system mismatch between developers compatibility issues may occur. Some dependencies of the application can be bound to a particular operating system.
4. Hardware Limitations
When we develop offline, we are again bound to our system’s computing power. Which puts us in a position where we are restricted to push the limits. Like stress testing, an application locally will be limited to the RAM of the system.
With all this GitHub is launching its own online coding environment called Codespaces.
With Codespaces GitHub target to provide a full Visual studio Code experience online.
GitHub introduced Apps for your repos through their Marketplace as well.
And Codespaces will have the ability to install extensions as we had in offline VS Code. Codespaces will support online deployment, testing, and debugging. And developers will be able to develop applications just using their browsers and good internet connection.
Bottom line
Desktop IDEs are still an important part of our development process. There are some cases where developers just can’t use browser-based solutions. But VSCode has been used by a lot of developers for Web development. Codespaces show promise that it can take the next big thing in cloud-based IDEs.
