Coder (Visual Studio Code in browser) goes open source

[darrinm]

https://coder.com

[wodenokoto]

I used to work at a place where we all used the enterprise server version of RStudio, which also runs in a browser.

There was a lot of good thing about that setup. Nobody could walk home with code, and no code was lost on somebody laptop.

Execution happened on a server, much more powerful than any dev machine.

[paulddraper → wodenokoto]

>no code was lost on somebody laptop.

Doesn't full disk encryption solve that as well as putting it in the cloud (and you'd need encryption anyway)

[wodenokoto → paulddraper]

Not necessarily lost to a 3rd party. Just if somebody was working on fixing a blocker and doesn’t push progress before going home and then losing the laptop on the train or something.

The real scenario would be “we need to finish this blocker that Jim is working on, but he is sick and hasn’t pushed progress to git.”

As to syncing with cloud. Why not just have it on cloud and let people ssh into the server. And then do one better better, and give them a full IDE instead of teaching them emacs or vim.

[iamgopal → wodenokoto]

How often do you think, somebody walk home with code, happened ?

[wodenokoto → iamgopal]

When you code on your laptop computer and push to git; every day.

The problem wouldn’t actually be people taking code home, it would be taking the data they are working on, as this could be highly sensitive data (think medical history) and regulation wouldn’t allow for it to leave the company location.

[BubRoss → wodenokoto]

Your medical data goes straight to people's all day every phones through Epic's web interface.

[wodenokoto → BubRoss]

Maybe in the states. Where I live the only Epic around makes fortnight.

[Hortinstein]

Has anyone tried this and compared it to https://www.theia-ide.org/?

First thing off the bat I notice is that Coder looks harder to deploy or try out, Theia was super easy, on the landing page they had a docker one liner:

docker run -it -p 3000:3000 -v "$(pwd):/home/project:cached" theiaide/theia:next

[eclipsenet → Hortinstein]

The biggest difference vs dockerized theia and coder is I have access to the actual server instead of just the docker container.

This means I have the full power of the underlying server, access to my docker on the host and any other features.

This also means though that it is direct shell access over the web and should be locked down like Fort Knox.

I've put this behind Traefik with httpauth for testing and it works well so far.

[cheapsteak → eclipsenet]

Which one gives you access to the actual server?

[joecot → Hortinstein]

theia looks pretty cool, but didn't look like intellisense was built in to that docker image. Is there an easy set of language plugins, and a way to get them to pop into that docker image?

[anton_kosyakov → joecot]

Which language are you looking for? There are more images: https://github.com/theia-ide/theia-apps and you can build custom with own set of Theia/VS Code extensions.

[_j7tr → Hortinstein]

Dockerfile is being worked on.

[andreigheorghe]

Why does an open source browser code editor ask for my phone number to sign up?

[agarren → andreigheorghe]

This got me too. It looks like a neat project, but the phone number requirement seems a little off. There doesn't appear to be a real need for it and running through their privacy page isn't helpful.

[_j7tr → andreigheorghe]

Its to prevent abuse as you get a real VM to run code server in.

[ksynwa]

Visual Studio Code in browser sounds a lot like Visual Studio Code itself.

[johnhenry → ksynwa]

How deep can the rabbit hole go? https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=auchenbe...

[fooker → johnhenry]

Neat!

[johnymontana]

Does it work well on iPad with an external keyboard? I've been surprisingly frustrated with the lack of support for iPad by in-browser IDEs.

[s_y_n_t_a_x → johnymontana]

Monaco doesn't support mobile browsers, so no, probably not well.

[sandis → s_y_n_t_a_x]

Seems that (at least one) related bug got fixed in WebKit (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149054#c17), but I haven't tested with the latest iOS betas

[sorahn → johnymontana]

The last time I asked about that on here someone suggested codesandbox.io. It has an option in the settings to use VSCode as the editor.

[nichch → johnymontana]

Did you end up trying? Coda has been tough for me to adjust to.

[NonEUCitizen]

Requires a login to try. Should have non-login trial, or youtube video.

[captaindiego → NonEUCitizen]

Github login also requires a phone number, which is definitely something I'm not willing to enter.

[agarren → captaindiego]

Whaaa? Is that a new thing? I've never needed to supply my phone# to GitHub, and there's no # associated with my profile. Also, I agree with you in being a little hesitant to give it out and is precisely why I didn't go further than the sign-up page for coder.com.

[bagol → captaindiego]

Is it true? I don't recall github ever asking for a phone number when logging in

[ksynwa → bagol]

Maybe they mean Coder asks for the phone number when one logs in with Github.

[WorldMaker → NonEUCitizen]

This blog post at least has a few useful animations: https://coder.com/blog/coder-v0-2-providing-all-of-vs-code-i...

[Wowfunhappy]

It looks super easy to host your own server. The instructions consist of:

> 1) Download a binary (Linux and OSX supported. Windows coming soon)

> 2) Start the binary with the project directory as the first argument

> code-server <inital directory to open>

From: https://github.com/codercom/code-server

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried it.

[csixty4 → Wowfunhappy]

x86/x64 only, by the way. I couldn't get it to build VS Code on a Raspberry Pi and the binary releases are only for x86/x64.

[anth_anm]

Is this based on the same JS code editor as VS Code?

[csixty4 → anth_anm]

It is VS Code. The build script grabs a copy of VSC, patches it, and builds it.