Ask HN: Do you use browser-based IDEs? Why? Why Not?
I've heard strong opinions from either side so I'm curious about what are some of the reasons you DO or you DO NOT use browser-based IDEs like Github codespaces, replit.com, vscode.dev, stackblitz.com, hony.ai and many more (Please suggest if you use something else). Also, please comment about your programming language and stack if relevant.
A few arguments to get the conversation started
Against using browser-based IDEs:
- Browser-based IDEs are limited in functionality
- Limited Customizability
- ...
For using browser-based IDEs:
- Security, e.g. installing npm dependencies on your local machine vs a sandboxed remote server
- Convenience of having the same environment everywhere
- ... A browser based IDE can't compare with a full IDE like e.g the IntelliJ-based IDEs from JetBrains, in terms of features. At best you'd get browser based access to a rich IDE running remotely... which is kind of the whole point of Fleet, but without (a) needing to run in a browser or (b) being tied to a specific website/service. I'm not sure if you're trying to suggest "convenience" or "security" are points in favour of running something remotely or not? Personally, the vast majority of projects I work on, use a Vagrant box in some way, so I get reproducible, "sandbox" environments without the need for internet access to make it work. My work is a bit of a mixed bag, including (but not necessarily limited to) the following (in no particular order): - PHP library development; - PHP web app development; - Shell library development; - Infrastructure tooling development; - Dev tooling development; - Vagrant box development (i.e. creating base boxes to use in projects) Great points, I've updated the comment to clarify arguments a bit I don't like such IDEs which are just thin clients to some megacorp's computer.