Project IDX
idx.dev
Project IDX is an entirely web-based workspace for full-stack application development, complete with the latest generative AI (powered by Codey and PaLM 2), and full-fidelity app previews, powered by cloud emulators.

What if your dev experience was entirely in the cloud?

These days, launching applications means navigating an endless sea of complexity. We felt this pain at Google, so we started Project IDX, an experimental new initiative aimed at bringing your entire full-stack, multiplatform app development workflow to the cloud.

Project IDX gets you into your dev workflow in no time, backed by the security and scalability of Google Cloud.

Project IDX lets you preview your full-stack, multiplatform apps as your users would see them, with upcoming support for built-in multi-browser web previews, Android emulators, and iOS simulators.

As a Vim fanatic, I can’t say I’ll ever feel comfortable working in a browser, but some parts of IDX seem interesting. I wonder what the implications are for proprietary code.

I do think it solves an interesting problem where you’re working on your desktop and decide to move to your laptop and continue working on the same codebase, but don’t want to commit early so you can pull down the changes to your laptop.

It reminds me vaguely of Shells.

    • jim_stark@programming.dev
      6·
      11 months ago

      Aren’t we past that point?

      VS Code is Electron based and it can even be deployed in the cloud. We are talking about one of the most popular IDEs.

      • Sigmatics
        11·
        11 months ago

        You are talking about transmitting every bit of code you write to the internet. Go ahead if you want that, I don’t

          • Ethan@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            11 months ago

            Yes. It is still entirely possible to run VSCode or VSCodium locally without any of that cloud crap.

            • jim_stark@programming.dev
              1·
              11 months ago

              True, I myself prefer VS Codium but how many people use it? And some site like Coursera have VSCode on the web and it can’t be changed to VSCodium.

              • Ethan@programming.devEnglish
                1·
                10 months ago

                My entire point is that you aren’t forced into using that cloud crap for normal development. And you aren’t forced into any specific IDE. You can choose whatever IDE you want unless your employer mandates something specific.

      • philm@programming.dev
        2·
        11 months ago

        Is it good technically though? Or is it just really popular because it’s so well maintained and extensible?

        I think the main reason vscode is so popular is, because there aren’t really good native alternatives (e.g. I wouldn’t compare e.g. vim because it’s kind of a different target audience).

        So maybe something like zed or so will take the reign of this class of editors, but we’ll see, I just hope it’s not yet another electron or DOM based editor, DOM is bad enough in the web already…