Show HN: Codeanywhere

"The only multi-platform cloud editor" except for all of the other ones.

https://www.nitrous.io/ http://codev.it/ https://codio.com/ etc, etc

PaulBGD 11 years ago | |

None of those are made for mobile/table. Not a single one.

majorsc2noob 11 years ago | | |

Neither is this. Page says it works on all platforms but when I try the code editor on my Windows Phone 8, it's clear that it does not. Page scrolls to weird locations when I just type. I typed Hello and some second later text was scrolled out of visibility. Spent a few minutes just trying to type, but it really does not work. (This was typed on same phone without weird scrolling...)

highace 11 years ago | | |

Duh - when people say something is mobile/tablet compatible, obviously what they mean is compatible with the latest version of Android or iOS.

/s

jbjorge 11 years ago | | |

Maybe he wanted to keep his code hack-free.

rjaco31 11 years ago | | |

Who is crazy enough to code on a mobile/tablet though??

icebraining 11 years ago | | |

Why? With a bluetooth keyboard, it's not that unpleasant to write a few lines.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | | |

Actually we are selves were surprised at the number of people that use it on iPad.

PaulBGD 11 years ago | | |

I suppose Codio has iPad support it looks like.

dabernathy89 11 years ago | | |

well technically any browser-based editor is going to be multi-platform. i'm just being picky.

bwb 11 years ago | | |

I think they mean because they have an iphone/ipad/android and other platforms supported. Not just browser.

empressplay 11 years ago |

I realise that it's become common to trust cloud services with your IP, but as expensive and onerous (and often impossible) it would be to prove that someone ripped off your code, it seems foolish to develop anything proprietary or patentable on a platform like this one, regardless of what legalese they put in their TOS.

It would be far more sensible for Codeanywhere to offer / license a VM or Docker appliance that you could host on your own server, that you could monitor its network traffic, and so on. This way you could have some sense of security.

When a chunk of source code can ultimately be licensed for millions of dollars, you probably want to have a bit more protection for your IP. Not being so much paranoid as practical.

lern_too_spel 11 years ago | |

Your argument applies just as much to email, but it appears not to be a problem. Two reasons:

1. The legal protections and auditing are actually enough. 2. The companies hosting mail and code successfully have better security than most customers that would otherwise run those services in-house.

raesene3 11 years ago | | |

on your second point, I'd be careful before making that assumption. Without evidence there's no reason to believe that a supplier company will have better security than your own and it's entirely possible they don't.

Also should a supplier suffer a breach they have powerful incentives not to disclose that breach to you, and where intellectual property is involved (e.g. code) the theft may well not become immediately apparent.

sargun 11 years ago | | |

The provider has a specific set expertise that's probably better aligned with hosting this service. Since it's a revenue center for them, versus a cost center, they're better equipped to make the case to hire specialists.

The your second point - legalese is very beneficial for that. In the US at least, as long as it's not a protected (by FISA, etc..) organization breaking into your provider's systems, contract law covering compromises is a fairly well developed area.

DanteVertigo 11 years ago | | |

I'll put the question as follows? Do we really need such a service? Come one! Come on!

davisd 11 years ago |

Being cloud based is this "Code Anywhere", or "Code anywhere where you have Internet access"? The latter, in my case, would be "Code in less places than you could with your laptop and standard offline dev tools".

damian2000 11 years ago | |

When was the last time you did any development without internet access though? For me at least, I've found it to be pretty much a necessity.

patrickg 11 years ago | | |

I travel a lot by train, which means a broken internet connection most of the time. Or when I stay in hotels or on a customer's site without wifi (3G doesn't always work well enough).

donkeybanana 11 years ago | | |

I gave a personal instance of the Cloud 9 (https://c9.io/) IDE a go a year or so back. Using git locally and enabling git on the server gave me collaborative and offline options.

I think some form of VCS access to these services determines their ultimate usability.

e12e 11 years ago | | |

Can't speak for parent, but for me: on a train (lots of tunnels - no really, lots of tunnels[1]), on an airplane and in an airport (no free wifi) -- quite recently.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Line#Line

Side-note, the Norwegian broadcasting service, NRK did a pretty crazy stunt filming the whole thing, and airing it on tv: http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/

aaronbasssett 11 years ago | | |

I have a complete copy of my production environment running locally in vagrant. I can code and run tests (3rd party APIs are all mocked) without any internet connection. I even have all the docs I could need cached offline in Dash.

The only thing I am missing is a local pypi to cache my commonly used 3rd party apps.

I use my laptop a lot on the go. Trains, Airlines, Pubs, Coffeeshops, and so on. Some places will have Wifi, or others I'll be able to tether. But I don't like to rely on having it to be productive.

phragg 11 years ago | | |

Keep a copy of your favorite Bootstrap/Foundation.

Have XAMPP running or some local server. Go have a blast.

idomdavis 11 years ago | | |

Daily, on the train :)

Brandon0 11 years ago | | |

Every time I fly.

skrebbel 11 years ago |

Very nitpicky, but part of the landing page copy says:

> NOW AVAILABLE ON ALL PLATFORMS

Now, I guess readers are willing to forgive Symbian and AmigaOS not being in the list the follows, but if you say "all platforms" you have to at least include Windows Phone.

My issue isn't really with OS support however, and it's perfectly OK to skip not-very-popular platforms. But if you put at least one blatant lie on the front page, you don't give me confidence that it's the only one.

gelatocar 11 years ago | |

Not sure if I am missing something but this works in Chrome, which works on windows...

edit: Sorry, the word "phone" was a widow and I missed it.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Note taken, will do our best to get this straitened out.

Morphling 11 years ago |

All these cloud IDEs seem to be popping up everywhere, but I just don't see the value in them. I use Vim as my editor so I can use everything over SSH anyways, so I just use Vagrant or SSH back home if I'm working on my Chromebook.

tempodox 11 years ago |

The colors look really nice, but I suspect my vim(1) can do it cheaper. What's it with the obsession to use the slow and heavyweight Browser+JS when you can do it lightweight & efficiently?

yeukhon 11 years ago |

First, congrat at releasing your project/product.

But I want to be a critic, like always. There are at least a dozen of "code anywhere" solution out there and most don't solve the core problem which is that we can either write code or run code with very very limited privilege.

As both a Github and a Bitbucket user, I can code anywhere I want as long as there is an Internet access. I can edit my files right on the page, or just fire up a new gist on gist.github.com to write a short snippet. I use jsbeautifier.com to make my JS code "prettier" if my code is getting messy. If I have a modern version of Firefox I can even write my Javascript in a scratch pad.

The issue is again I don't have an environment to run code and use the tools I want to use. I don't mean that this is an easy problem to solve as everyone has their own special setup (e.g. different dot files, tab vs space, etc) and minus security handling and hardening. But that is the hard problem, and the real problem worth digging.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Thank you very much :)

I honestly appreciate the criticism, and I agree on the problem that exists and we are trying our best to solve it and we believe that we are on our way there, especially with the new DevBoxes. Feel free to try Codeanywhere out and send me/us more (constructive) criticism. Thanks!

boomskats 11 years ago |

I'm a long time cloud9 user and we actually use ace editor in a couple of our own projects. I logged on to check out your diff feature as I thought it was quite neat, but all I got was a bunch of broken menus and misaligned panels.

When I say logged in, I mean that this was the first thing I saw after doing the one-click signup via my google account. I'd advise you to fix your product before advertising it, and let us know so I can have another look.

http://i.imgur.com/ZX9w3rD.png

Google Chrome for Linux 36.0.1985.125

EDIT: Works fine after a couple of refreshes. I didn't know codemirror had that diff mode. Nice.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Have not seen that yet, as I just tried it and got this:

http://i.imgur.com/uLvQqic.png

But will look into it. Appologise

azurelogic 11 years ago |

You advertise bitbucket support, but as far as I can find, that's only as a generic git provider using a DevBox only via your web interface. You set the expectation that it would be possible to get the iOS app, set up an account, attach to a repo, write code, and commit.

This does not deliver.

If this is possible, it isn't clear at all and I couldn't find documentation on it. If this is some sort of premium feature, that's not clear either. Please get your marketing copy in line with the platform's actual capabilities.

garrypettet 11 years ago |

Not affiliated with this but the product seems to work as advertised. Lets me work on my sites during my lunch hour at work on any office browser.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

I am the Cofounder, thanks for the post!

morepyplease 11 years ago | | |

Are you planning on windows store support (universal)? Says you support all major platforms but one is apparently missing :)

Great contribution!

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | | |

We do have a lot in the pipeline, and Windows will be coming along :)

Thanks

deevus 11 years ago | | |

Any chance there's a student plan?

voltagex_ 11 years ago |

This looks pretty damn good!

Couple of things:

* Have you tried making the tour/tutorial a small toast notification, rather than a modal? (I'm allergic to modals)

* Could I have a button to "Create from github project" which would check my project out into a new workspace/sandbox/devbox?

basv 11 years ago |

I just tried this last week while evaluating ide's with ipad support, but the bluetooth keyboard support in the app is not very good (e.g. the arrow keys don't allow for moving the caret). Any chance you're fixing this soon?

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

This is a problem with a private API of Apple. But we are working on a workaround.

jaoued 11 years ago |

Excellent Product. Easy to sign-up and from London it feels and looks as the machine is next to my feet. One suggestion though is may be to include a live chat support to bring some human feel and love :) and differentiate from the competition.

Congrats.

fiatjaf 11 years ago |

Digital Ocean has web-based terminal access to your droplet (in case you have one). Why not use that to code from anywhere?

twodayslate 11 years ago |

If two files are opened and named the same (ex: index.html), you should show the directory they are in as well in the tab.

kamakazizuru 11 years ago |

how is this different from cloud9?

twodayslate 11 years ago |

I'd love an OSX-based 'devbox' so I can write in Swift or Objective-C

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Very cool idea!

twodayslate 11 years ago |

I should be able to use the browse functionality if my filesystem is FTP.

Gurrewe 11 years ago |

Why would I trust you with my codebase?

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Why would you not? Is it any different than any other online tool that your code passes through?

known 11 years ago |

Brilliant webapp

sandromur 11 years ago |

seems cool, but what are devboxes?

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Thanks, well DevBoxes are in essence your own virtual private servers that run in the background of Codeanywhere. They give users the ability to provision any Development Environment they prefer ( PHP, HTML5, Java, NodeJS, python, ruby, c/c++).

PaulBGD 11 years ago |

This is a quite great produce, the best for coding on the go.

ivan_burazin 11 years ago | |

Thank you!