Developing in GCP using a chromebook

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Philip Bell

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Mar 2, 2017, 7:52:04 PM3/2/17
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Hey everybody, this is my first time posting out here and couldn't think where exactly to post this.

I'm heading to CloudNEXT '17 next week and have been playing with using my chromebook for GCP development instead of my macbook.  I was wondering if anyone is going that's bringing only a chromebook, or if anyone else here develops using one?

Thoughts?

Chris Sells

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Mar 2, 2017, 7:53:29 PM3/2/17
to Philip Bell, Google Cloud Developers
Hey, Philip. We've seen this happen more and more often. I'm curious, what tools do you use to developer solely from your Chromebook?

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Philip Bell

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Mar 2, 2017, 8:06:35 PM3/2/17
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I've been using Caret for awhile for basic text editing, I've only been playing with GCP for a month, and just installed Crouton this week, so I can't truly answer with a set developer stack yet.

On my mac I use Xcode and IntelliJ, along with Atlassian made tools online.  All of that is web based so easy to swap between mac and chomebook.  I'm not a web developer however, more focused on data and architecture, rather than simple Web UI and Javascript based coding.  That on top of what we'll be using GCP for I'm not sure a chromebook can fully support my needs, so was curious if others were having more success, or were even brave enough to try and attend CloudNEXT with just that as their laptop.

nick payne

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Mar 3, 2017, 9:36:03 AM3/3/17
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I've been using caret for small scripts or javascript projects (chrome extensions mostly) of a limited size, and it's a great little editor for such tasks.

For proper development though, I prefer to use the Secure Shell app to SSH into a Compute Engine VM that I've set up as my dev box. I run emacs text editor for those interested in my religion. When I need a GUI in the VM I use the hilariously-excessively-proprietarily-named "VNC® Viewer for Google Chrome™", with the VM running TightVNC server.

Now, there are also cloud editors out there that are great, but I don't use them much (for no particular reason other than that I like having a bash shell and emacs), such as Cloud9, Codeanywhere, and Codenvy. I've written apps with them before, though, and they're a joy.

If there's one thing to take away from this comment, though, let it be that the Secure Shell app is absolutely awesome and essential.

Also, put your machine into developer mode if you can.

-- Nick

Chris Sells

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Mar 3, 2017, 10:51:25 AM3/3/17
to nick payne, Google Cloud Developers, Philip Bell
Have either of you looked at the Cloud Shell as a development environment, especially now that it includes the Orion editor?

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Sachin Kotwani

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Mar 3, 2017, 11:03:35 AM3/3/17
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Hi Folks,

I'm the PM for Google Cloud Shell and would love to hear your feedback once you give it a try. It can be accessed by clicking on the shell icon on the top right of the Cloud Console page. Pro-tip: Bookmark this link to be dropped directly into a Shell session.

@Nick, how do you find the experience using VNC from a Chromebook? Is the latency bothersome?

Thanks,

Sachin.-


On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 10:51:25 AM UTC-5, Chris Sells wrote:
Have either of you looked at the Cloud Shell as a development environment, especially now that it includes the Orion editor?
On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 6:29 AM, nick payne <nick.8...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've been using caret for small scripts or javascript projects (chrome extensions mostly) of a limited size, and it's a great little editor for such tasks.

For proper development though, I prefer to use the Secure Shell app to SSH into a Compute Engine VM that I've set up as my dev box. I run emacs text editor for those interested in my religion. When I need a GUI in the VM I use the hilariously-excessively-proprietarily-named "VNC® Viewer for Google Chrome™", with the VM running TightVNC server.

Now, there are also cloud editors out there that are great, but I don't use them much (for no particular reason other than that I like having a bash shell and emacs), such as Cloud9, Codeanywhere, and Codenvy. I've written apps with them before, though, and they're a joy.

If there's one thing to take away from this comment, though, let it be that the Secure Shell app is absolutely awesome and essential.

Also, put your machine into developer mode if you can.

-- Nick

On Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 8:06:35 PM UTC-5, Philip Bell wrote:
I've been using Caret for awhile for basic text editing, I've only been playing with GCP for a month, and just installed Crouton this week, so I can't truly answer with a set developer stack yet.

On my mac I use Xcode and IntelliJ, along with Atlassian made tools online.  All of that is web based so easy to swap between mac and chomebook.  I'm not a web developer however, more focused on data and architecture, rather than simple Web UI and Javascript based coding.  That on top of what we'll be using GCP for I'm not sure a chromebook can fully support my needs, so was curious if others were having more success, or were even brave enough to try and attend CloudNEXT with just that as their laptop.

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nick payne

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Mar 3, 2017, 11:08:37 AM3/3/17
to Sachin Kotwani, Google Cloud Developers, phi...@xponentialworks.com
@Sachin, re: VNC latency on Chromebook:

The latency exists, but it's not too troublesome so long as you're close to the data center. If you have to use a proxy which routes through another continent, though... the necessary network latency does add up, making it clunky. This is why I'm glad emacs is such a powerful editor, with multiple buffers, great plugin ecosystem, so I can get by very well without needing a GUI. Often I'll expose a port for HTTP server on the VM so that I don't even need to use VNC to view the devserver, I just hit the instance IP on the given port and view the devserver in my machine's browser. 

Sachin Kotwani

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Mar 3, 2017, 11:17:45 AM3/3/17
to nick payne, Google Cloud Developers, phi...@xponentialworks.com
Thanks Nick. I'm assuming the exposed http port only helps with accessing the devserver's running web app, but not with the editing/IDE part, correct?

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nick payne

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Mar 6, 2017, 12:13:40 PM3/6/17
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Hey Sachin,

Yep, the exposed port is to be able to run HTTP traffic through 8080 (or whatever devserver port you use). However, an exposed port could also help with an IDE if for example you used an IDE that was designed for / allowed network connections, such as Eclipse Che
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