Eclipse Che is an open source developer workspace server and cloud IDE (https://www.eclipse.org/che/). It's got strong Java support as well as support for many other languages.
You can run it wherever Docker runs (and soon wherever you have OpenShift) and you can use it for free with 3GB RAM at codenvy.io.
Serious question: has Eclipse Che gotten easier to setup over the past year?
I tried it out in May/June 2016, and setting it up was very difficult -- the documentation was sparse and I ran into errors all over the place. When I finally had it setup correctly, a new version came out, and updating killed all my existing workspaces.
So, has there been a focus on documentation, stability, and clear upgrade paths in the last year?
The docker-based install is a little tricky because we need access to the docker socket and have to create a mount point so that workspaces can be stored locally (so they're not lost with upgrades). It's likely that when you last tried it we had not completed the local storage option.
If you have a chance try this: https://www.eclipse.org/che/docs/setup/getting-started/index... - we've added interactive help but we've also tried to clarify the syntax needed. I'd love to hear what you think. Of course if you hit issues please let us know on the eclipse/che GitHub repo.
Is there any real alternative to C9 (self-host or no, I don't really care) that isn't a part of AWS/GCE/<cloud provider here>? I've already tried C9 (hosted and self-hosted) and am not really a fan.
- Copy pasting this command will start Che on most platforms:
`docker run --rm -ti -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v ~/.che:/data eclipse/che start`.
We can't avoid mounting the docker socket but you are right we could probably avoid asking to provide a specific host folder (i.e. `~/.che`). But the downside of not providing a host folder would be that users won't have access to Che configuration files. Do you think that running command like `curl -sSL https://get.che.eclipse.org/ | sh ` would be better from a user perspective?
- We currently distribute Che in two flavours: single and multi user. Single user is the default one and if you run the command above you will run single user Che. No need to setup KeyCloak :-)
- I don't think we support Elixir yet but that's definitely something we would like to do. Do you know if there is any reliable Elixir language server?
I think the goal should be getting rid of all of the parameters so people who've used docker before don't need to look up how to start it and people who've not used docker before get a more legible command to paste.
When did you try it? I tried it many years ago, and it was cool, but also kind of sucked as any new IDE does. I recently spent a few minutes with it after the AWS announcement and it feels a lot more stable and less flaky. If you haven't tried it in a while, give it a spin and see how it works out.
I've been blasting PeteJKim with DMs and @'s anywhere I can find him but I don't think he's going to open source it. It's a shame -- I had only just discovered Nitrous and switched to it when they shut it down. It really was the best solution.
Open sourcing the tech would probably take a ton of work, though. Probably a lot of proprietary tech. I wish they'd at least open source Nitrogen, the Atom plugin, even with missing bits.
I have been using this for past few days after the AWS announcement. It works so well and feels almost like having a fully functional Web Based IDE. I simply SSH into my Digital Ocean server and can work smoothly from anywhere.
