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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Microsoft wants developers to start coding in the cloud

As software developers, we tend to get pretty attached to the IDE we use. And it's not hard to see why -- it's the tool we rely on the most, which enables us to create fantastic products and be productive while doing so.

And this can create a problem when we're faced with a change in our flow. We do not like change. Don't get me wrong. Change is great -- as long as it's not happening on our machines. Microsoft, however, doesn't mind a challenge, as it just unveiled Visual Studio Online. Like its name suggests, it's an IDE in the browser. Unlike its name suggests, that's only a small part of it.

Visual Studio Online is basically a service for software developers, which enables users to spin up dedicated environments "for long-term projects, to quickly prototype a new feature, or for short-term tasks like reviewing pull requests."

I am sure that at some point later down the road Microsoft will find a better name for it. Probably one that includes Azure in it -- because that's where those environments live in. But, for now, as it's in the public preview phase, it'll have to do.

[...] One thing to note here is that there will also be a browser-based version of Visual Studio for this -- the Visual Studio part of Visual Studio Online I mentioned in the beginning. It's not ready for prime time yet, but it should come in handy when you're just looking to do some quick work -- at least at first I don't expect it to work as a replacement for its on-premises brothers.

All this makes me wonder if we are not looking at a shift in how we develop software. After all, if the software we create can live in the cloud, why can't the programs we write be designed there as well?

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