[HN Gopher] Vscode.dev
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Vscode.dev
        
       Author : connor4312
       Score  : 579 points
       Date   : 2021-10-20 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (code.visualstudio.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (code.visualstudio.com)
        
       | beebeepka wrote:
       | > we "pahked it"
       | 
       | It took almost 30 years to finally get comfortable with the way
       | native, mostly British, speakers pronounce R. It still doesn't
       | feel right but I no longer fight.
       | 
       | I can still picture myself yelling my hard Rs at Google translate
       | and it consistently failing to understand me.
       | 
       | Somewhat more on topic: I just realized I've been using nothing
       | but Viscose for 2 years now. Still not as good as WebStorm but
       | it's getting there. It wasn't nearly as good back in 2017.
       | 
       | Not sure I want it to be just a tab in my browser thought. Very
       | cool nonetheless. We've come a long way
        
       | jt2190 wrote:
       | It'll be interesting to see how this evolves compared with other
       | players in this space. (Stackblitz comes to mind. They added
       | support for "WebContainers" recently, for in-browser hosting of
       | server-side code: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27223012)
        
       | phil294 wrote:
       | It would be great if we could also run VSCode in terminal. It
       | should theoretically totally be possible, but for some reason,
       | there is still no good text-only browser supporting JavaScript.
       | 
       | Edit: Just tried brow.sh - only displays a white page. Might be a
       | solution though
        
       | shelbyKiraM wrote:
       | I'm already trying to edit PNGs but in Firefox no file system
       | access API yet, so I tried uploading an image to edit in Luna
       | Paint but it only loads an empty image?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | tracnar wrote:
       | It seems to be like Theia https://theia-ide.org/ which is based
       | on vscode and runs in the browser. It's used by this project to
       | give a full lab/workspace and ide in the
       | cloud:https://www.eclipse.org/che/ (it's actually closer to
       | vscode even though eclipse is in the name).
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | No theia has a nodejs server backing its web experience. This
         | vscode.dev is an entirely client side JS application that runs
         | in your browser--there's no backend server beyond something to
         | serve a pile of static JS and html.
        
           | mohanmcgeek wrote:
           | Is this true about vscode.dev?
           | 
           | This was the first question I had while reading the blogpost:
           | Do all my local files stay on my machine or do they get
           | uploaded to a remote server?
        
             | qbasic_forever wrote:
             | The blog post says it's using a brand new local file access
             | API only in cutting edge browsers (edge and chrome) so you
             | can access the files on your machine directly from the
             | browser. There is no server upload of anything.
        
           | tracnar wrote:
           | Ah yes that's cool, they mention even the Python extension
           | can run client-side.
        
       | maximilianroos wrote:
       | Electron in the browser! :head-explodes:
       | 
       | (jk, this is awesome, great job)
        
       | peakaboo wrote:
       | I don't think this will be a success.
       | 
       | If I get to choose between this and my own local installation, of
       | course i will run the local version.
       | 
       | Why would I want to sit in the browser? To continue on the same
       | cursor position I was if I switch computer? Not worth it at all.
        
         | hunterb123 wrote:
         | It's not competing against local, it's in addition to.
        
       | lom wrote:
       | LPT: press . on any github repository when logged in and it will
       | open that repository in vscode.dev with everything set up
       | 
       | Similar to github codespaces without a real computer to back it
       | up
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | janjones wrote:
         | Good tip, although it's not vscode.dev, but github.dev.
         | Slightly different thing as explained in this section:
         | https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2021/10/20/vscode-dev#_g...
        
       | louissan wrote:
       | yeah. no.
        
       | tehlike wrote:
       | Next up will be using webusb or an extension to do mobile
       | development on browser, and streaming (or straight up running the
       | emulator through wasm).
        
       | mseepgood wrote:
       | What's the feature that allows a website to open local files and
       | folders?
       | 
       | Edit: I think I found it: File System Access API, supported by
       | Chrome and Edge, not supported by Safari and Firefox
        
         | hbn wrote:
         | > supported by Chrome and Edge
         | 
         | read: supported by Chrome
        
       | wiradikusuma wrote:
       | FYI: You can't run/compile your code (yet), and by extension it
       | means it won't show any error/warning (I tried deleting some
       | lines). I'm guessing the next step is cloud build.
        
         | xnyan wrote:
         | >https://github.com/cdr/code-server
         | 
         | This may be what you're looking for? An agent runs on the
         | development computer, and you get everything that it has
         | (debugging, compilation, etc).
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | Something worth noting - unlike offerings like Github Codespaces,
       | code-server and others this one is running fully in your browser
       | (no backing VM). This is both good (faster to start and run, no
       | server roundtrips needed) and bad (can't install custom language
       | toolchains or run build scripts, can't pause and restart on
       | different machines). vscode.dev is specifically not a "cloud
       | IDE".
        
       | DeathArrow wrote:
       | Ok, you can use VS Code like an editor in a browser. But how are
       | you going to compile / run the code if you can't install binaries
       | on that machine?
        
         | jstummbillig wrote:
         | What is the context of "that machine" here?
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | The code is still on your local disk. Compile and run it
         | however you want.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | It's crazy how much the dev tooling space has evolved in just the
       | last few years. VS Code is of course a big part of it, but there
       | are a hundred offshoots providing CI/CD, dev VPS, source control
       | integrations, language tools, static hosting, staging, functions.
       | The next step, IMO, is more clarity. How do all these puzzle
       | pieces fit together, and what is the "ideal" solution for me as
       | an individual developer or a small team to use day-to-day?
        
         | davedx wrote:
         | There's been loads of progress and some stuff has categorically
         | improved the dev experience, but a lot of it is pretty chaotic
         | churn (hello grunt, gulp, webpack, babel), and we are still
         | missing out of the box UI tooling that shipped with Visual
         | Studio like 20 years ago (MFC/VB forms). And let's not even get
         | started on the kind of stuff that was possible with Smalltalk.
         | 
         | The problem is much dev tooling is indeed so fragmented and
         | mostly missing strategy or direction. It's like a collective
         | stream of consciousness that has a bunch of directions in mind.
         | 
         | I wonder if MSFT has the vision to reinvent some of the
         | visionary dev tooling from the last century for the modern web.
         | That would be really something.
        
       | MR4D wrote:
       | I find a couple things pretty neat here:
       | 
       | 1 - All of the screenshots are from a Mac. This never would have
       | happened with the old MSFT.
       | 
       | 2 - The performance of this is pretty good. Admittedly, I just
       | played with this for a couple minutes, but even opening a folder
       | with a bunch of files was snappy.
        
         | dustinmoris wrote:
         | This is because Microsoft doesn't seem to want Windows
         | developers to use VS Code. They want to keep them locked into
         | Visual Studio and Windows Azure, which is why the C# plugin is
         | one of the worst from all language plugins in Code.
        
           | jaywalk wrote:
           | That's a pretty strange implication. I just tried opening up
           | a .NET Core application in VS Code developed exclusively in
           | Visual Studio, and it fired right up. Now I certainly
           | wouldn't say that the debugging experience is as good as VS,
           | but nobody should expect it to be. VS Code isn't supposed to
           | be a replacement for VS, although it can certainly hold it's
           | own. And it's _free_.
        
             | imafish wrote:
             | VS community is also free :)
        
               | jaywalk wrote:
               | Yes, but it has a very significant licensing restriction
               | that prevents it from being used to develop commercial
               | software. VS Code has no such restriction.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | Microsoft has long been one of the biggest application vendors
         | on the Mac, there were previous eras where most of the
         | screenshots of Office would have been taken on a Mac too.
         | Though yes, never would have happened in the "Windows is our
         | sports team, hoo rah" parts of the Ballmer era.
        
       | dudus wrote:
       | > quickly parked it (...) (or, if you are from the Boston area
       | like me, we "pahked it"
       | 
       | What a strange joke to include on Developer docs.
        
         | aydwi wrote:
         | Yeah what a shame...I too prefer to pretend like a robot on
         | this forum.
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | This is on /blogs and has an author under the title of the
         | post.
        
         | aptxkid wrote:
         | Proud to be a Bostonian!
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | >"Fast forward to today. Now when you go to https://vscode.dev,
       | you'll be presented with a _lightweight version_ of VS Code
       | running fully in the browser. "
       | 
       | Does that imply there is functionality _missing_ from the online
       | version of VS Code?
        
         | meibo wrote:
         | If you were to continue reading, you would be informed that
         | many of the non-web languages don't have the same support in
         | this version, since it can't run native language servers/any
         | extensions that use OS-level APIs.
        
         | easton wrote:
         | Mostly anything that relies on having a real system attached to
         | it instead of the browser JS engine. Running code, or a
         | terminal, or things that rely on the git binary. Lots of
         | extensions are working to remove their dependencies on the
         | local system though.
        
           | tiffanyh wrote:
           | So these limitations don't exist for Codespaces then?
        
             | easton wrote:
             | They do not.
        
         | lucasmullens wrote:
         | Some extensions aren't available, such as GitLens.
        
           | JimiofEden wrote:
           | Yeah, the first thing I tried was to install some Go
           | extensions. I guess they'll need to have separate web
           | versions (or some sort of extra qualifiers)
        
       | alexnewman wrote:
       | I've been using codespaces for a while. now my copilot doeasn't
       | work there.
        
       | thurn wrote:
       | I've love to see this for open source, especially integrated into
       | GitHub. A simple "click here to contribute" button could really
       | lower the barrier to entry for first-timers.
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | This has been around for a year now:
         | https://github.com/features/codespaces
        
         | fetzu wrote:
         | I'm not sure if I am understanding your post correctly, but
         | AFAIK you can just hit "." from your browser on GitHub and it
         | opens an editor (based on VSCode) for that repo.
         | 
         | Not sure if Git is fully integrated in there (although, it
         | being based on VSCode, it should).
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | Yes, just hitting dot in Github opens up Github.dev which is
           | very similar to this VSCode.dev. So similar that this
           | VSCode.dev lets you get the same experience if you rewrite a
           | Github.com repo URLs and prefix it with VSCode.dev. Today
           | VSCode.dev also supports the same thing with Azure Repos if
           | you prefix dev.azure.com repo URLs.
           | 
           | The "remote repository" experience on VSCode.dev is a little
           | more involved than just "fully integrated git" (it relies on
           | the GitHub/Azure Repos APIs and existing VS Code extensions
           | with Remoting support for some of it beyond just what raw git
           | can provied), but they say in this article that it is
           | extendable and they can and hope to add other providers in
           | the future.
        
       | brundolf wrote:
       | File system access being one of the main reasons to put a web app
       | in Electron, this could be a move toward the more lightweight
       | future that some on HN have been clamoring for
        
       | ravenstine wrote:
       | This is exactly what I've been looking for. There was another
       | site (forget the name, something-something-cloud) that supposedly
       | did this but it seems abandoned and didn't work on any browser
       | that I used.
       | 
       | An online VS Code would not only make doing quick things with
       | GitHub repos much easier but can be great for people just getting
       | into learning programming because it doesn't require installing
       | anything, but you are essentially starting out with a
       | professional tool.
       | 
       | That and every once in a while I'm not on my own computer thus it
       | would be pretty nice to kill time coding with a VS Code instance
       | that doesn't need installation.
        
         | pjot wrote:
         | Was it cloud9?[0] I remember this from a few years ago, but it
         | seems like it was killed after they were acquired by AWS.
         | 
         | [0]: https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/
        
         | tiffanyh wrote:
         | You might be thinking of https://coder.com
         | 
         | >"Code-server is the primary open source project we maintain.
         | It allows developers to use a browser to access remote dev
         | environments running VS Code"
        
       | hackeratrandom wrote:
       | I like using the web to create the web ... & yes, always keeping
       | an eye towards us continuing to make it the "we"b ;-)
        
       | tckerr wrote:
       | I would love to be able to pop this open for prototyping simple
       | python/js scripts, but the lack of "run" support makes that much
       | less feasible. Curious to see where the next iterations go.
        
       | whoomp12342 wrote:
       | No, fuck off. I want my code running against my own cpu so I know
       | what is going on. Thanks.
        
       | up6w6 wrote:
       | Not open-source yet, the best alternatives for self-hosting right
       | now are:
       | 
       | https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-server
       | 
       | https://github.com/cdr/code-server
       | 
       | Update: also check the discussion about their differences
       | https://github.com/cdr/code-server/discussions/4267 (IMO both are
       | much slower and worse than vscode.dev)
        
         | colordrops wrote:
         | > Not open-source yet
         | 
         | Will it eventually be open sourced?
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | There is no direct comparison, so unfair to call them slower or
         | worse. Both these services are for running your own private
         | server and for browser IDEs to be thin clients. You can
         | configure the server with your language tooling, build scripts
         | and whatever else. You can also pause and resume your session
         | from a different device (since a majority of business logic is
         | handled by the server).
         | 
         | vscode.dev runs fully in your web browser, and files are read
         | from local disk. There is nothing in the cloud. So yes it is
         | faster, but serves a different use case.
        
         | combatdisinfo wrote:
         | >IMO both are much slower and worse than vscode.dev
         | 
         | This just... doesn't make sense other than browser differences
         | and the resources of the server actually running Code.
         | 
         | Is the free trial of GitPod slow because it's running in a
         | resource-constrained environment. Sure. (edit: let me be clear,
         | GitPod is an amazing end-to-end experience and they have a very
         | generous free tier for OSS projects/users, but it IS free
         | unless you pay).
         | 
         | Is self-hosted GitPod or code-server slower than VSCode? Not
         | enough that I can notice when they're _side-by-side_ looking
         | identical, I can 't tell which is which. In fact, I would
         | challenge a single person to show me a side-by-side version-to-
         | version comparison that shows VSCode.dev or VSCode native being
         | significantly faster than code-serevr given that they're
         | virtually the exact same thing running in Chromium instead of
         | ... Chromium/Electron.
         | 
         | (On an unrelated note, when _even CloudFlare_ can switch to
         | HCaptcha, and HN can 't... well, I guess it's in line with the
         | amount of technical care this place gets all-around.)
        
         | factorialboy wrote:
         | +1 for GitPod .. Stellar integration with GitLab as well for CI
         | / automation
         | 
         | They claim Github integration as well (although I have not
         | tried that yet).
        
       | jcmontx wrote:
       | I love it! Great job MSFT.
        
       | riquito wrote:
       | What api is it using to let you create a file in a local
       | directory? I know about https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
       | US/docs/Web/API/FileSystem but that's for virtualized filesystems
        
         | tkzed49 wrote:
         | confusingly called the File System Access API
         | 
         | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_System...
        
         | yunohn wrote:
         | They've literally linked it at first mention -
         | https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/File_System_Acces...
         | .
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | Web file system access API, it's only in edge and chrome right
         | now unfortunately: https://web.dev/file-system-access/
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | The File System Access API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/docs/Web/API/File_System...
         | 
         | e.g. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/docs/Web/API/Window/show...
         | 
         | will give you access to a handle representing a directory on
         | the user's real file system
        
       | ramon wrote:
       | Dream come true! Congrats!
        
       | rpdillon wrote:
       | I'm intrigued by the use of webapps in this way, but I really
       | think we need a better solution for rebinding keys in the
       | browser. I tend to use Emacs bindings (which practically every
       | editor supports), but they are a bit of a mess in browsers
       | because even extensions can't clobber bindings like C-n, and I
       | recall having issues with C-w and C-p as well. Otherwise, very
       | exciting to have high-quality, zero-install tooling like this!
        
       | stared wrote:
       | A modern browser environment is an OS on its own. Change my view.
        
         | keyb0ardninja wrote:
         | More like a virtual machine. The javascript virtual machine.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | You should talk to Suhail Doshi.
         | 
         | https://www.mightyapp.com/
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | That was already the case a long time ago. We have now reached
         | the stage where individual applications running in the browser
         | can be an OS on their own - VS Code itself is a very good
         | example.
        
       | BiteCode_dev wrote:
       | It's not only an awesome technical achievement, but it has also
       | so much potential to be useful.
       | 
       | And yet, something at the back on my head is screaming:
       | 
       | WARNING!
       | 
       | I have the intuition that, on the long run, using more and more
       | tools that are not on your own machine will create a dependency
       | on systems big companies control. And something tells me we are
       | going to pay for it in the end.
       | 
       | So I'll stay away.
       | 
       | Maybe I'm getting paranoid, but I don't regret not having ever
       | created a Facebook account, or not getting on the 2010 hype train
       | of magical SAAS services like Firebase that lock you in
       | eventually.
       | 
       | We'll see in 10 years I guess.
        
         | nbzso wrote:
         | This is my personal opinion. I don't imply in any way or form
         | that my point of view is right. You can down-vote, call me
         | names, or ignore what I am sharing. I don't care.
         | 
         | Since Apple CSAM attempt, something at the back of my head
         | screamed: Regroup. React. Change. Now.
         | 
         | Two months after Apple's "postponing for better
         | implementation": My company runs on Arch/Manjaro (over old
         | MacBooks Pro without T chip, custom PC's, etc). There is no
         | iPhone in sight - my colleagues/employees found personal
         | alternatives. I use DeGoogled Android device for banking app
         | and flip phone.
         | 
         | Designers are with powerful Linux boxes: Windows VM - mainly
         | Figma (I don't like it, but this is production standard now)
         | and Affinity Designer/Photo. We use mainly
         | Vim/Emacs/VSCodium/Sublime.
         | 
         | Vendor lock-in is inevitable, SaaS business logic is based on
         | this premise. I don't care how cool it is, or how 'trendy',
         | there is no way my company production code to be served as a
         | "free petrol" for some monopolistic/"good intention" scheme
         | which will feed AI advancements geared towards removing of
         | skilled professionals.
         | 
         | I don't like SaaS apps direction at all. We have powerful
         | hardware now, there are proven ways of collaboration with FOSS,
         | moving everything in the browser is utterly insane.
         | 
         | I cannot hide how I feel about the lack of critical thinking in
         | designers and developers today. They are always ready to jump
         | on the bandwagon just to feel 'cool and important'.
         | 
         | Call me crazy, or paranoid. In 5 years time all will be
         | transparent and obvious even for the most "optimistic" ones.
        
         | idle_zealot wrote:
         | This is running on your machine though. The browser downloads
         | vscode as a SPA-style thing, and runs the editor in the browser
         | sandbox, and can edit local files/directories.
        
           | BiteCode_dev wrote:
           | Sure. And the google map api is free to use, you can send
           | tweet using sms, facebook doesn't show ads and web services
           | never change policies once they get enough users.
           | 
           | Good thing it's running on your machine and you can see and
           | control when it updates.
        
         | ramses0 wrote:
         | It's already that way. It's immensely hard to "develop on an
         | airplane / desert island". eg: even documentation is at best
         | something like "dash" => https://kapeli.com/dash ... forget
         | about anything more complicated than SQLite, and if you're
         | lucky docker-compose for occasionally connected use.
         | 
         | My experience? Chromebook / Crouton, usually offline with
         | occasional network access. I ended up leaning hard towards
         | SPA's + javascript, with most of the documentation being
         | "legit" available. (JS, HTML, CSS, DOM, etc.) ...occasionally
         | researching + pulling in libraries on occasion.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | blumomo wrote:
         | On your site. Never going to use these tools.
        
       | humantorso wrote:
       | If you want to run you own version of this - try this
       | https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/code-server, its very easy
       | to configure. linuxserver has created code-server - which is
       | vscode running in container. I have been running it in my
       | personal network for nearly a year now. It great because it lets
       | you code from any device. Sometimes I use this to quickly script
       | out things on my ipad and then execute whatever script I have
       | created using Terminus.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | These are two very different things. vscode.dev runs fully
         | locally. It accesses files from your local disk, and doesn't
         | need a network connection (after initial setup/asset caching).
         | 
         | code-server requires the backing server to be available at all
         | times, and all editor features are pulled from the server via a
         | websocket connection. You can pause and resume whatever you
         | were doing from a different device.
        
       | ARandumGuy wrote:
       | This seems really cool, and seems like it took a lot of man hours
       | to put together.
       | 
       | However, I'm not sure who this is for. Downloading and installing
       | an application is not a particularly big ask for the type of
       | people who use VSCode. The browser version will always be a
       | compromised experience, given the inherent limitations of browser
       | applications. Even if it works 99% of the time, that 1% would add
       | enough friction to make it more of a hassle then it's worth.
       | 
       | The post gave some use cases involving hardware that can't easily
       | run Desktop VSCode (e.g. iPads and Chromebooks). I just don't see
       | that being much of a use case though, except in desperate
       | circumstances where a more capable dev machine isn't available.
       | 
       | If there are some use cases I'm missing, I'd love to hear about
       | them! This is a pretty new concept, and I certainly don't know
       | how everyone likes to code. But from my perspective, I struggle
       | to see any situation where someone would choose to use this, and
       | few situations where someone would have to.
        
         | maybeOneDay wrote:
         | Some non western countries have student/junior freelance
         | developer populations comprised almost entirely of people using
         | mobile devices for development. I imagine this will be a god
         | send for them
        
         | windowsrookie wrote:
         | Tablets for sure. There are no good coding apps on Tablets. Say
         | you're going on a trip somewhere and don't feel comfortable
         | bringing your $3,000 laptop. Pickup a $150 android tablet +
         | keyboard. Or low income individuals, you could start coding
         | right from your phone without having to buy anything new.
        
           | jpindar wrote:
           | I just tried it and it mostly works in Chrome on Android,
           | except that I can't right-click because Chrome uses that to
           | go back.
           | 
           | Anyone know how to disable that in Chrome?
        
         | aquova wrote:
         | I'm not sure what the use of the standalone site is, however
         | Microsoft has already integrated VSCode-in-a-browser into
         | Github. If you go to a Github file and press . then that
         | repository will open up in a VSCode instance in browser. It's
         | quite useful to have it's search features rather than needing
         | to clone down a project first.
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | This VSCode.dev standalone site adds Azure Repos support in
           | addition to Github.dev's existing GitHub support, and they
           | say it will be extendable by extensions so maybe hope for
           | Gitlab/Bitbucket/Gitea/Sourcehut/who knows who else to add
           | this sort of remote dev experience that the Github dot
           | shortcut does.
           | 
           | Also, there's a new "Theme Preview Playground" which lets you
           | write URLs to try theme extensions before you download them.
        
         | tppiotrowski wrote:
         | Downloading and installing is a big ask if you don't have the
         | required system permissions (computer labs, work issued
         | laptops, Chromebooks).
         | 
         | Another data point: I used to compile VSCode for ARM to run it
         | on a RaspberryPi and had to do it anytime there was an update.
        
           | peakaboo wrote:
           | So you as a developer are not allowed to install a code
           | editor... To edit code... Which is... Your profession...
           | 
           | So you need to use a Web browser as a code editor because...
           | Installing a binary to the disk is not allowed?
           | 
           | It's crazy!
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | Yes, quite common on Fortune 500.
        
             | IggleSniggle wrote:
             | I think the craziness of it is highly context dependent. If
             | you're expected to be running everything in "the cloud"
             | anyway, then as long as you have execute permissions _on
             | the cloud computer you are authorized to_...ok no now wait
             | a minute, you 're right. This is crazy no matter how you
             | slice it.
             | 
             | M: "Ok, here's your company issued computer. You're not
             | allowed to do anything with it, because security and IP."
             | 
             | D: "Ok, but I need a computer to compile unique code, and I
             | need to be able to execute that code..."
             | 
             | M: "Good news! We bought lots of cloud compute, so you can
             | do whatever you need or want with your compute!"
             | 
             | D: "...how is this different."
             | 
             | M: "Well you see, we didn't issue those computers. So if
             | something bad happens, it isn't because of us. It's because
             | of the cloud."
             | 
             | D: "...but if something 'bad' only happens because of the
             | code that I wrote, isn't it still bad whether its running
             | here or there?"
             | 
             | M: "Fine! If something bad happens, it's your fault, not
             | the cloud, because _we_ didn 't do it, and of course the
             | cloud is infallible."
             | 
             | D: "I'm not working here."
             | 
             | M: "..."
             | 
             | D: "..."
        
             | oriki wrote:
             | You've never wanted to edit text/code on a computer that
             | isn't yours before? There are a lot of cases where I can
             | see this coming in handy for making quick edits as an IT
             | professional, especially in cases where I need to mess with
             | a slightly complex file on an end user's machine but don't
             | have the time or desire to copy it back to my own.
             | 
             | It's a tool, you don't have to use it.
        
         | rattlesnakedave wrote:
         | >However, I'm not sure who this is for. Downloading and
         | installing an application is not a particularly big ask for the
         | type of people who use VSCode.
         | 
         | True, but IMO doing anything we possibly can to get from
         | individuals who want to code -> actually coding faster and
         | easier with minimal setup is a huge win. I remember starting
         | out using codeblocks for C++. My biggest hurdle was figuring
         | out how to get a compiler integrated with the IDE.
         | https://repl.it is doing first class work in this space. I
         | highly recommend you check them out as well.
        
         | coldtea wrote:
         | > _However, I 'm not sure who this is for. Downloading and
         | installing an application is not a particularly big ask for the
         | type of people who use VSCode_
         | 
         | It's like how nerdy types could easily slap together their own
         | Dropbox, with rsync and duct tape (as per the famous comment),
         | but most didn't - plus the world is not just full of types
         | who'd do it. And then MS can start adding all kinds of
         | collaboration tools built in, from pair coding to bug tracking,
         | time tracking and so on.
         | 
         | I can imagine an enterprise giving devs just this + something
         | like local/Cloud VPS/CI/CD environment to work in. Immediately
         | reproducible, no hassle, secure, and so on.
         | 
         | > _The browser version will always be a compromised experience,
         | given the inherent limitation_
         | 
         | Well, offline VSCode is a glorified browser as well.
        
           | JasonCannon wrote:
           | >Well, offline VSCode is a glorified browser as well.
           | 
           | Not really, it may use electron for the front end, but a huge
           | amount of what makes vscode useful and fast is the native
           | binaries that power all of its functionality.
        
             | Zababa wrote:
             | What are those native binaries? I know that VSCode ships
             | with ripgrep, but that's the limit of my knowledge. Those
             | binaries probably could be compiled to WASM to make VSCode
             | fully run in a browser too.
        
               | JasonCannon wrote:
               | The Language Servers that power all of the intellisense
               | and syntax highlighting and stuff are all native code. As
               | are the compilers and everything that make VSCode more
               | than just a text editor.
        
           | redleggedfrog wrote:
           | "I can imagine an enterprise giving devs just this +
           | something like local/Cloud VPS/CI/CD environment to work in."
           | 
           | That sounds horrible.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | That is how many of us used to work on UNIX and similar
             | timesharing OSes.
             | 
             | The cloud + browser is back to the future.
        
               | noizejoy wrote:
               | Brings back sweet memories of Multics[0], which predated
               | Unix by quite a bit:
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | My first experience with such setup was the DG/UX at the
               | university campus, where we had a mix of classical
               | green/ambar phosphor terminals, and a couple of X-Windows
               | thin clients from IBM to connect to it.
               | 
               | Regarding Multics, it was a failure only for Bell Labs
               | themselves, as the project kept going and had still a
               | couple of years for itself.
               | 
               | https://multicians.org/myths.html
        
               | Zababa wrote:
               | That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the insight.
        
             | dlisboa wrote:
             | It's really freeing when coupled with something like Gitpod
             | or CodeSpaces. You join a new project and you have ZERO
             | setup to do on your own. You can open up a new branch and
             | start working in seconds. I don't have to worry about
             | whether my computer has enough memory to keep up with
             | Docker, if it's fast enough for this new project, if I have
             | to install version managers to separate runtimes for each
             | project (rbenv, pyenv, nvm, etc).
             | 
             | To perform experiments it's even better. I have multiple
             | directories with sample/initial projects from many
             | languages where I was just feeling out a new framework or
             | library or concept. Then months pass and I can't run them
             | again because the specific dependency is no longer
             | installed on my laptop. Now I can create these new study
             | projects and know that it'll run in seconds when I get back
             | to it.
             | 
             | Plus not all of us can work from highly performant
             | workplace-provided workstations. I have just my laptop to
             | work with. Imagine running Docker and Chrome and Spotify
             | and maybe macOS decided that was the right time to hog my
             | disk and do file indexing while I'm running tests...it's a
             | hassle I'm glad to be rid of. I'd rather a company get me a
             | Gitpod/Codespace and I can separate things cleanly.
        
           | Zababa wrote:
           | > Well, offline VSCode is a glorified browser as well.
           | 
           | It's the opposite, you download an OS that runs VSCode. That
           | OS is a web browser. It's just that it's an OS that runs on
           | other OSes.
        
           | glitchc wrote:
           | Not to mention corporate rules.
        
         | newsbinator wrote:
         | In Safari:
         | 
         | > Your current browser doesn't support local file system
         | access.
         | 
         | > You can either upload single files or open a remote
         | repository.
        
         | outside1234 wrote:
         | The use case is Codespaces.
         | 
         | Codespaces is magic because it allows you to go from zero to
         | fully configured dev environment, even for the most complicated
         | environments, in five minutes via a preconfigured dev container
         | 
         | VSCode in the browser allows you to do this, but is only part
         | of the story, and without the dev container, you miss the
         | really valuable part of that story.
        
         | patrickserrano wrote:
         | Honestly, this looks amazing for times when I'm in a meeting
         | and want to look a piece of more complex code but don't have a
         | local copy of the repo. The Azure DevOps repo UI leaves a lot
         | to be desired, especially if you know where a piece of code is
         | called from but don't know where it's defined off the top of
         | your head.
        
         | CJefferson wrote:
         | I teach coding to new programmers, in particular kids, and
         | every step is a pain. In particular, since we had to go fully
         | remote it's really hard to even get people started.
         | 
         | Anything where I can just say "go to this website, start typing
         | python/javascript, see cool stuff happen" is cool.
        
           | jonny_eh wrote:
           | Teaching code is hard enough, anything that makes the process
           | easier, especially at the start, is greatly welcome.
        
         | Godel_unicode wrote:
         | > ...the type of people who use VSCode
         | 
         | This type of gatekeeping helps no one. We should be optimizing
         | for lowering barriers to entry, not justifying making an
         | already hard problem (learning to code) harder.
         | 
         | > ...except in desperate circumstances...
         | 
         | Some 15% of American adults are smartphone only. That
         | percentage rises very quickly once you look outside of the G20.
         | Those are also some of the people most likely to have their
         | lives drastically improved by having access to the ability to
         | code.
         | 
         | The fact that you don't have a usecase for a tool absolutely
         | does not mean that such a usecase does not exist, nor does it
         | make that usecase less valuable.
        
         | Androider wrote:
         | Surely shoving VSCode into a tab is just step 1. Think about
         | what this could do, that your local app couldn't.
         | 
         | Off the top of my head: Complete remote state. Open vscode.dev
         | on your desktop, work for a while. Then open vscode.dev on your
         | Macbook Air later, and be in _exactly_ the same state. I don't
         | mean, the same project, I mean the text cursor is at the same
         | position in the same file with the same set of tabs open.
         | 
         | Need a GPU for some CUDA work? The only question is how many
         | GPU cores would you like.
         | 
         | Could your next engineering hire's onboarding guide be: open
         | vscode.dev/company/workspace, click the "run all tests" button.
         | OK, you're done, please pick the topmost "ready to start"
         | ticket from the queue.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | gkfasdfasdf wrote:
           | Saving state sounds pretty awesome indeed, but does it really
           | work like that? From the blog post it sounded like it is
           | opening files on the local filesystem.
        
           | 91edec wrote:
           | This already exists with github codespaces.
           | https://github.com/features/codespaces
        
             | geoffeg wrote:
             | Sadly still limited to teams or enterprise users. I hope
             | they open it up to individual contributors soon.
        
               | dlisboa wrote:
               | I've used Gitpod (https://www.gitpod.io/) for this same
               | scenario and it's available for anyone, way cheaper than
               | Github Codespaces (possibly free depending on your
               | usage), and it works really, really well. It felt like
               | coding in the future.
        
           | moonchrome wrote:
           | But this is already far better if you use code server [1]
           | because you get your extensions/compilers/etc. running on the
           | same host
           | 
           | This particular implementation (opening local files via
           | browser) sounds rather useless.
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/cdr/code-server
        
           | SCUSKU wrote:
           | I have been a very happy user of VSCode Remote - SSH. I have
           | a VM in AWS with a GPU that I SSH into using VSCode, and I
           | can use VSCode as if I were running it locally, with all of
           | the computer power of a big server. Would highly recommend!
        
         | brundolf wrote:
         | I suspect those "inherent limitations" will continue
         | disappearing over time. It wasn't that long ago that file-
         | system access was one of the biggest ones. WASM and/or Workers
         | could bridge the gap on language servers, building/running
         | code, etc. Not much would be left at that point
         | 
         | And I think there are definitely cases where installing is a
         | barrier to entry; think about people in locked-down enterprise
         | environments, or students coding for the first time (on their
         | own computers or otherwise). We're talking about an IDE
         | becoming as readily available as Notepad (or even more so,
         | since it's available on all platforms)
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | I've used the github.dev "." shortcut (on any repo in Github
         | press dot to jump to github.dev) a few times to browse the code
         | "more comfortably" with many of my VS Code extensions (via
         | Settings Sync) without needing the time to clone locally.
         | (There is a way to get one of the Github extensions locally to
         | give you a Remote Repository experience in a local VS Code
         | window, but that dot shortcut is much more convenient.) I've
         | even forked and made small (mostly Markdown) PRs that way now.
         | 
         | I'm excited that VSCode.dev now supports the same thing with my
         | company's current Azure Repos. Maybe they can give us a dot
         | shortcut there now too. (If anyone is still active enough work
         | on it to make such a change.)
         | 
         | Though I think the big new use case (that a lot of people are
         | overlooking) is the new Theme Preview Playground use case in
         | the article towards the bottom is a pretty great one. For
         | instance, here's the VSCode theme I currently use because it
         | shiny and rad and totally tubular:
         | 
         | https://vscode.dev/theme/jaredkent.laserwave
         | 
         | You don't have to download the theme to try it. It opens a fake
         | workspace with several examples of code highlighting to get a
         | feel for the theme. If you've got Settings Sync turned on
         | you'll see how it interacts with your other settings (like
         | which side you keep the "explorer bar" on) and if you decide to
         | Keep the theme by clicking the button in the notification it
         | pops up, your other devices will install the extension
         | automatically and start to use it as soon as they next sync.
         | 
         | It's pretty neat and the article implies it's the first
         | "playground" of this sort and probably not the last as they get
         | other ideas of extension types people might prefer to test
         | before they download.
        
         | pfisherman wrote:
         | I dunno. It would be pretty sweet to not have to bring a laptop
         | with me when I travel / go places. Just whip out the iPad, open
         | a browser, connect to remote host, and get to work.
         | 
         | The caveat of course is that this supports connecting to a
         | remote host.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | Being able to run VS Code with only browser APIs and no
         | Electron/Node.js is still a big win for PWA proponents even if
         | it doesn't offer anything new.
        
         | wffurr wrote:
         | FTA:
         | 
         | "This simple gateway to the local machine quickly opens some
         | interesting scenarios for using VS Code for the Web as a zero-
         | installation local development tool, such as:
         | 
         | * Local file viewing and editing. Quickly take notes (and
         | preview!) in Markdown. Even if you are on a restricted machine
         | where you cannot install the full VS Code, you may still be
         | able to use vscode.dev to view and edit local files.
         | 
         | * Build client-side HTML, JavaScript, and CSS applications in
         | conjunction with the browser tools for debugging.
         | 
         | * Edit your code on lower powered machines like Chromebooks,
         | where you can't (easily) install VS Code.
         | 
         | * Develop on your iPad. You can upload/download files (and even
         | store them in the cloud using the Files app), as well as open
         | repositories remotely with the built-in GitHub Repositories
         | extension."
         | 
         | Also various interesting URLs are now possible:
         | 
         | "For example, change https://github.com/microsoft/vscode to
         | 'https://vscode.dev/github.com/Microsoft/vscode'.
         | 
         | For Azure Repos, do the same. Change https://dev.azure.com/...
         | to 'https://vscode.dev/dev.azure.com /...'."
         | 
         | "As you can see, vscode.dev URLs are a powerful way for us to
         | deliver new, lightweight experiences. Another example is that
         | Live Share guest sessions will also be available in the browser
         | through the https://vscode.dev/liveshare URL. The sessionId
         | will be passed to the extension to make joining a seamless
         | experience."
        
           | peakaboo wrote:
           | Your solutions are to problems that a decent developer
           | doesn't accept anyway.
           | 
           | Working on locked down machine where you are not allowed to
           | have visual code? Seriously?
           | 
           | Working on a chromebook? Why?
           | 
           | Sorry to be negative but I feel sometimes you tech guys get
           | excited about solutions to problems that doesn't actually
           | exist in the real world.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | Welcome to enterprise IT world.
        
             | LuciusVerus wrote:
             | This "decent developer" thing sounds a bit gatekeepy - this
             | solution isn't here to replace a fancy IDE on a MacBook
             | Pro, it's here to help make coding easier to beginners or
             | on shitty machines. I'd have loved to use this in high
             | school/college instead of relying on the IDEs already
             | installed in the lab.
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | It's _entirely_ gatekeepy. We should be doing everything
               | we can to encourage development where people are at, not
               | trying to say that unless you do it a certain way (which
               | costs a lot of money for a student, or someone in a
               | developing country) you 're not a "decent developer".
        
               | WorldMaker wrote:
               | Plus there are more than enough "dark matter" developers
               | making an otherwise good living at Fortune Xty companies
               | that are afraid of technology and love micro-management
               | and require all software to install to go through 6
               | month+ review processes. I've known some fantastic
               | developers that will put up with that (and more), code in
               | Notepad and Perforce if they have to, so long as they
               | make a living wage and can clock out directly at 4:59pm
               | every day. (In some of those cases there is maybe hope
               | for them that getting a personal internet access firewall
               | exception for vscode.dev might only be one form and a 30
               | minute review versus that 6 month+ process to get VS Code
               | installed properly. I appreciate that it may be a nice
               | new option for them by existing.)
               | 
               | It's not a lifestyle that I want for myself, but that
               | doesn't mean I don't respect those folks as "decent
               | developers". It takes a lot of fortitude to build
               | software in those sorts of constraints.
        
               | WorldMaker wrote:
               | It may be late in October, but I guess some people don't
               | appreciate horror stories of actual development jobs that
               | exist. If I could find a way to package that and sell it
               | as Developer Haunted House experiences, I imagine I could
               | make a quick buck.
        
             | Gracana wrote:
             | Even if everything about remote workspaces were bad for
             | professional developers, they will accept it if that's what
             | companies are offering. Just like they accepted open
             | offices, standup meetings, all-day video calls, agile, etc.
             | And there's a lot to like for an employer: spend less on
             | computers, reduce IT costs by locking down machines, get
             | new employees productive sooner, make developers more
             | interchangeable...
             | 
             | It's going to happen, and it doesn't matter much if
             | employees like it or not.
        
             | easton wrote:
             | You should consider yourself lucky to never have been under
             | the boot of a crappy IT department that won't let you have
             | diddly (and even if they let you have diddly, it's five
             | years out of date).
        
             | ncallaway wrote:
             | > about solutions to problems that doesn't actually exist
             | in the real world.
             | 
             | Problems that _don 't exist_, or that you personally don't
             | have?
             | 
             | Why is enabling development on a Chromebook a bad thing?
             | You ask "Why?", but it seems a more reasonable question to
             | me is: "Why not?" This seems to pull one of the bricks away
             | from "why not?" for working on a Chromebook. I don't see
             | why that's a bad thing.
        
         | jackson1442 wrote:
         | > The post gave some use cases involving hardware that can't
         | easily run Desktop VSCode (e.g. iPads and Chromebooks). I just
         | don't see that being much of a use case though, except in
         | desperate circumstances where a more capable dev machine isn't
         | available.
         | 
         | This is _huge_ for education. Many school districts are
         | distributing managed chromebooks to each student because of
         | their low cost of ownership and really all you could code on
         | with those was replit.com. VS Code in the browser allows you to
         | expose students to a programming environment just like what
         | they'd use professionally.
         | 
         | This isn't meant for the developer with the latest 16" MacBook
         | Pro, it's meant for people who can't necessarily install vscode
         | on their machine. Maybe it's on a shared machine at a library
         | and they can't install software, or maybe it's a Chromebook.
        
           | Marciplan wrote:
           | I'm excited for it being able to, I believe, do a bit of
           | coding on my iPad :)
        
         | n8cpdx wrote:
         | Students and kids with chrome books - a huge amount of middle
         | and high school students in the US. Students who Microsoft
         | would like to grow up thinking software development = Visual
         | Studio.
        
         | matthewhammond wrote:
         | For me the point is more around generally pushing things
         | towards the cloud and away from snowflake local environments.
         | One click app generation from templates, one click deploys of
         | your app to ephemeral environments for testing and sharing...
         | all without requiring any setup, and integrated into GitHub for
         | collaboration. Want to onboard someone to working on your app,
         | just send them a hyperlink to the repo.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | Taking Electron to the death row.
        
       | qbasic_forever wrote:
       | Interesting they're using tree-sitter for syntax highlighting.
       | Obviously they can't run LSPs in the browser so this must have
       | been an alternative. I'd be curious to see this get into mainline
       | desktop VS Code though (and I'm not alone:
       | https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/50140).
        
         | tehlike wrote:
         | why can't they run LSP?
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | The article points out that the Typescript/Javascript and
         | Python LSPs run in the browser providing "better" experience
         | than the tree-sitter experiences for languages without browser
         | capable LSPs today.
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | They don't use tree-sitter for syntax highlighting unless the
         | extension you're using uses it. By default (and almost
         | everything uses the default) VSCode uses the Textmate syntax
         | highlighting system.
         | 
         | And there's no reason they can't use the LSP in the browser as
         | long as the actual language servers can run in the browser -
         | pretty easy with most languages these days.
        
       | webwanderings wrote:
       | Two features missing right away: Terminal and Remote SSH.
        
         | tegiddrone wrote:
         | +1 I'm curious how it would be implemented. Would we have to
         | send ssh credentials into some proxy service to get MITM'd?
         | Browsers can't communicate ssh directly? WebRTC hack? As some
         | others have mentioned: linuxserver/code-server on docker would
         | scratch this itch a little bit.
        
         | alexissantos wrote:
         | Yes! Remote SSH on this would be a game changer for me.
         | Especially if I can run it on an iPad...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | n8cpdx wrote:
       | Very cool stuff.
       | 
       | I remember being at Build 2018 and asking the PM on the Live
       | Share team if they had any plans to bring VS Code to the browser.
       | Maybe do managed environments for labs and companies (what GitHub
       | code spaces now is), would be great for education. Lots of
       | students (especially non-CS nerds, like the physics kids with a
       | CS requirement) find environment setup to be one of the hardest
       | parts. He seemed to think I was a piece of shit for not 'getting'
       | what Live Share was all about and how those other offerings (code
       | spaces, running in the browser without install) were bad ideas
       | not worth considering.
       | 
       | I think the moral of the story is, if you're a PM, don't treat
       | your most enthusiastic customers like shit. Or maybe do, because
       | it won't actually have business impact.
        
         | outside1234 wrote:
         | And always assume when a customer tells you something like that
         | that YOU are the one that doesn't get it.
         | 
         | Otherwise, you might be the one that gets fired, probably like
         | this guy.
        
         | shuntress wrote:
         | > "Lots of students (especially non-CS nerds, like the physics
         | kids with a CS requirement) find environment setup to be one of
         | the hardest parts."
         | 
         | Advice I received early that has stuck with me (and that I have
         | found to be true): "Environment setup is the hardest part".
         | 
         | This was true for me in school and has remained true through
         | multiple professional teams.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | airocker wrote:
         | We built lab.computer for this. Root access, state save,
         | sharing, auto/manual grading. We would love to get some
         | feedback. Everyone using it seems to love it.
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | The PM on the live share feature only gets a promotion if they
         | can prove the value and engagement of their feature. Sadly this
         | leads to very close-minded and hostile attitudes at different
         | levels in the product. You want to talk to the group PM for the
         | VS code product to pitch an idea about new features (but you
         | aren't going to see this person spending time at a trade show
         | booth).
        
         | lostintangent wrote:
         | I'm really sorry to hear you had this experience :( I'm not
         | sure who you spoke with, but this perspective definitely isn't
         | representative of the team and/or how I'd ever want to see us
         | talk with developers.
         | 
         | I'm actually a PM for both Live Share, Codespaces, and some of
         | our education-related experiences (e.g. the GitHub Classroom
         | extension for VS Code). A web client for collaboration, with
         | zero-install/onboarding, has always been our north star, and so
         | your intuition/feedback was 100% right back in 2018.
         | 
         | Now that we have Codespaces, vscode.dev/github.dev, and Live
         | Share support for the web, we're actually looking to further
         | optimize our support for education, since we believe we have a
         | lot to offer. In fact, I'd love to connect and hear your
         | thoughts, to make sure we're going in the right direction. If
         | you'd be interested in letting me make up for that terrible
         | conversation in 2018, you can reach me at
         | joncart@microsoft.com. Thanks for sharing this feedback, and
         | letting us know where we can do better.
        
           | iamstupidsimple wrote:
           | Hey! I'm curious how vscode.dev fits in with GitHub
           | Codespaces. Are they competing products, or is Codespaces
           | only a superset of the other?
        
         | atonse wrote:
         | It seems like this person had the wrong personality to man a
         | conference booth.
         | 
         | Being a PM with a closed mind doesn't qualify you. Seeing
         | conferences as opportunities to learn new ideas or even hearing
         | from existing customers can bring a lot of value.
        
         | TremendousJudge wrote:
         | As a CS student we used Cloud9 IDE for developing and code
         | sharing in assignments -- we didn't know what Git was and using
         | it didn't become a requirement until later semesters. "Don't
         | touch anything, let me compile first" was a common utterance.
         | 
         | Haven't looked into it for a while, apparently it was bought by
         | Amazon and you need an AWS account? Back then it was just open
         | the site and you're coding
        
           | genericacct wrote:
           | The open source version is still available as c9sdk on GH,
           | some docker images are available on dockerhub
        
           | mynameismon wrote:
           | If you really want to use something like that, Harvard's CS50
           | has made it available freely (under their own wrapper of
           | tools): https://ide.cs50.io
        
             | lostintangent wrote:
             | Speaking of education/CS50: we (the Codespaces/Live Share
             | team) have actually been very excited/privileged to
             | collaborate with the amazing CS50 team, as they've built
             | their student experience on top of VS Code/Codespaces
             | (http://code.cs50.io). Lowering the barrier of entry for
             | learners, and supporting student success, is a huge goal of
             | ours, and so I'm looking forward to getting our tools in
             | the hands of more developers, and iterating based on
             | feedback.
        
               | gavinray wrote:
               | This is really cool
        
             | nsonha wrote:
             | Very cool of Harvard to keep c9 alive, I have fond memory
             | of it. Having said, vscode is just superior in everyway.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | On every HN thread I count the minutes until it turns into a
         | personal rant against some big company, and it never
         | disappoints.
        
           | IshKebab wrote:
           | They're almost as tedious as
           | 
           | "I want to share an anecdote about me that is tangentially
           | related to the article. I'm not going to comment on the
           | article, but the title reminded me of something that I
           | thought of once, or maybe something that happened to me. I'm
           | pretty smart so I'll share it with my fellow smart people
           | here now. It's about me.
           | 
           | Back in 2003 I was running an FTP server from my garage. It
           | was running on one of the new Slackware BSD boxes that were
           | popular at the time. We didn't have many users but one that
           | we _did_ have was Jamie Zawinski - actually he was my
           | roommate at the time.
           | 
           | We used to spend most evenings coming up with new compression
           | algorithms and practicing Vim exit sequences and ..."
           | 
           | Yeah anyway I'm not a HN comment generator AI but it's crazy
           | how many comments here are just "let me tell you a story
           | about me".
        
           | fijiaarone wrote:
           | Have you considered bird watching or needlepoint?
        
           | enumjorge wrote:
           | And while those stories are interesting to hear, I don't know
           | why they so often make it to the top or near it. Like is one
           | PM being bad at listening to user feedback really the most
           | interesting topic of discussion for this post?
        
             | Graffur wrote:
             | Well .. yes actually. VS in the browser is not that amazing
             | - we already got it on https://github.dev a month ago
        
         | godot wrote:
         | Just a side note... as a CS nerd and a software engineer with
         | 15+ years of professional experience, environment setup is
         | still one of the hardest parts for me, especially if I'm
         | picking up a new tech stack.
        
           | Graffur wrote:
           | It's tedious because you'll always run into an error even if
           | following documentation. Automated dev environment setup ftw
        
       | joshuarubin wrote:
       | While I know it's not the fault of the vscode team, it sucks that
       | Firefox feels like a second class citizen since it doesn't
       | support the File System Access API.
        
         | yesimahuman wrote:
         | It's these kinds of big mainstream products using these APIs
         | that are the only hope to get Firefox to prioritize them.
         | Barring that I see FF further left behind. Very frustrating as
         | a FF user myself.
        
         | fartcannon wrote:
         | Yeah, Microsoft supporting Google via Chrome feels a lot like
         | big Oil supporting frakking technology.
        
       | benatkin wrote:
       | Part of the Visual Studio Code brand is that it's open source.
       | With this snarky announcement, they've changed that. I've been
       | using https://vscodium.com/ and who knows when there will be a
       | web version. :(
        
         | tills13 wrote:
         | How is this announcement snarky? Also this seems like something
         | they could easily open-source down the road.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | OliverGilan wrote:
       | I wonder if this uses pretty much the exact same code as the
       | desktop version. It seems to me that one of the big benefits of
       | using Electron would be to have one codebase deployable as a
       | desktop app and a website with very little change for each
       | deployment.
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | It's going to use most of the frontend UI code but all of the
         | NodeJS-specific stuff in the desktop version is a no-go and has
         | to be shimmed or polyfilled to run in the browser. The biggest
         | thing you lose here is system-level access like the ability to
         | run processes--tests, terminals, debugging, etc. And as the
         | blog post mentions unfortunately these things aren't supported
         | yet in vscode.dev.
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | See https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-server which has
         | that design philosophy.
        
       | minimaxir wrote:
       | For those who think web-based IDEs are inefficient, I recommend
       | giving VS Code in the browser a try: nowadays it's just as
       | performant as it is on the desktop.
       | 
       | Even on the iPad it's just as performant (with 120Hz scrolling!),
       | although as noted in the announcement, the file system
       | limitations make it a bit of a pain to work with for ad hoc
       | coding.
        
         | johnday wrote:
         | > For those who think web-based IDEs are inefficient, I
         | recommend giving VS Code in the browser a try: nowadays it's
         | just as performant as it is on the desktop.
         | 
         | This doesn't read to me as the acclaim that you think it is.
         | What I'm hearing is that the desktop application is as slow as
         | a web IDE.
         | 
         | No doubt the people at VSCode have put every effort into making
         | the application run well on desktop, but that's not to say that
         | it comes close to "native".
         | 
         | For another point of reference, I'd say that Discord is "as
         | fast in the web browser as it is on desktop", but that's no
         | compliment; the desktop client is extremely laggy, even on an
         | up-to-date Windows PC. [That said, relatively speaking VSCode
         | is leagues ahead of Discord on this front].
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | FWIW I've used web-based IDEs for certain bespoke tasks and
           | desktop VS Code is still magnitudes ahead of them in
           | speed/performance.
        
           | vineyardmike wrote:
           | > the desktop application is as slow as a web IDE.
           | 
           | Have you ever used VSCode on the desktop? I have never
           | experienced any issue with VSCode nor have I ever wished it
           | performed better.
        
             | MarioMan wrote:
             | It's not an especially fair case, but I was surprised at
             | how poorly VSCode ran on a Raspberry Pi 3 when I tried it
             | awhile back. Running it with a remote connection to a
             | beefier machine would make for an amazing thin client.
        
             | sic1 wrote:
             | I envy you for never having issues with VS Code. I have to
             | restart it far, far too often for it grinding to a halt.
             | I'll lose my auto-complete menus completely. Forget auto-
             | completing any paths (like for imports) when it gets to
             | this state. I have to restart my whole computer sometimes.
             | 
             | I have minimal plugins, but have once again removed some
             | more that I thought were helpful, performance got a little
             | bit better again. But we shall see how long it holds up, as
             | I've done this a couple times now in an attempt to gain
             | reliable performance. This is on basically a brand new 15"
             | i9 Intel MBP.
             | 
             | I'm not the only one I've talked to that has random slow-
             | downs like this. I've literally contemplated going back to
             | Sublime Text 2 for my sanity - I just want things to work
             | reliably. Oh, and if you accidentally click on one of your
             | build files, enjoy the system lock-up!
             | 
             | I don't need new features every month in VS Code that I
             | won't use. I just want better performance on the basics so
             | I can get back to being in flow, writing code, solving
             | problems.
        
         | lostmsu wrote:
         | As mentioned in the release notes, this only works for web
         | languages sadly. And no debugging. In a way, that's not really
         | a complete IDE (though they are probably working on it).
        
         | depressedpanda wrote:
         | > Even on the iPad it's just as performant (with 120Hz
         | scrolling!), although as noted in the announcement, the file
         | system limitations make it a bit of a pain to work with for ad
         | hoc coding.
         | 
         | That's on Apple, because they only allow Safari (or reskinned
         | variants of Safari) on iOS.
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | For any Googlers, how does vscode.dev (or Codespaces) compare to
       | your internal web based editors and code pipeline tools?
        
       | me_im_counting wrote:
       | I wonder if there will be better remote development support on
       | vscode.dev? It used to work well for me, but in recent releases
       | the remote functionality has gotten so flaky...
        
       | k__ wrote:
       | If file access is supported by all browsers, this accompanied
       | with WASM could lead to a new era for web apps.
        
       | honestduane wrote:
       | When will the code be available? Its MIT, so it should be on
       | github, but it's not.
        
       | artisanspam wrote:
       | I was hoping this would be the thing that makes coding on an iPad
       | not awful. But any keyboard shortcuts are consumed by Safari, so
       | it's a pain to use. However, I hope that this enables the VS Code
       | team to make a native iOS/Android VS Code app that would
       | essentially just be a web browser that uses this functionality.
        
         | keyb0ardninja wrote:
         | You can do this right now on android. If you're using
         | chrome/chromium based browser, just visit vscode.dev and then
         | select add to home screen from the browser menu. A similar
         | option exists in firefox on android too, I believe.
         | 
         | Once you open the shortcut created from the previous step, it
         | will open the webapp without the browser's UI.
        
           | jpindar wrote:
           | How did you get Chrome not to hijack right-clicks?
        
             | judge2020 wrote:
             | Do you mean vscode.dev itself hijacking right-clicks to
             | display its context menu[0]? If so, there's this great
             | extension I use to enable it on the myriad of websites that
             | use it for non-alt-context-menu usage[1].
             | 
             | 0: https://i.judge.sh/thirsty/Flutter/chrome_w3SVLELGag.png
             | 
             | 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enable-right-
             | click...
        
               | jpindar wrote:
               | Umm... no. I _want_ vscode.dev 's context menu.
        
             | keyb0ardninja wrote:
             | I didn't play around with it much. It might have the issues
             | you're facing.
        
           | artisanspam wrote:
           | Nice, this works on iPad with Safari as well. At the very
           | least, simple key binds work. Thanks!
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | I absolutely do not want VS Code to be an iOS or Android app,
         | since that means giving up all the massive progress they have
         | made towards fully open web-based development and bowing down
         | to the gated App Store model. If that means a less than perfect
         | experience on iOS devices then so be it. VS Code as it exists
         | today wouldn't even be allowed in the App Store under existing
         | rules.
        
           | judge2020 wrote:
           | iOS at least has second-class support for PWAs via 'add to
           | home screen', where it does take up the fullscreen like a
           | regular app without any attestation to a central authority
           | (besides the CA/B racket and Google safe browsing of course).
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-20 23:00 UTC)