"Cloud IDE" - what the fuck?
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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I think it means client-server basically. You can host a server in "the cloud" then access a frontend to it via your browser.
Might also mean it has features relevant to debugging/deploying cloud services.
Cloud is often a BS marketing word, but I'm sure there's ways to make it justifiable in this case. (Not that any of us has to like these features. I for once can't stand the idea of having my editor run inside a browser...)
I for once can’t stand the idea of having my editor run inside a browser…
Well, don't run it inside a browser then. There is no need to get agitated because of that option. But this is super useful for universities and other organizations that educate people. They can run these preconfigured IDEs for their students and execute the code on the same server, so that even if you have something like a Chromebook, you can participate in classes. This is what places like Harvard do, and this is how Microsoft introduces CS students to VSCode and other products.
Is this not just vscode? Its definitely not eclipse, although from memory that could be served as a webapp through some fancy java to html thing.
Apparently not. I had to click a few pages into their site for this:
"While Eclipse Theia incorporates certain components from Visual Studio Code, such as the Monaco editor, it is independently developed with a modular architecture and is not a fork of VS Code."
I had to click a few pages into their site for this
It's on the landing page in the "Extensible and Open" section too.
While Theia incorporates certain components from Visual Studio Code, such as the Monaco editor, it is independently developed with a unique, modular architecture, Theia is not a fork of VS Code.
Last I heard about was it when it was officially launched months back.
I gave it a try, it was immediately noticeable that it was worse than VSCode for me, so I just dropped it, besides, I still don't understand the appeal of an app that still has to grow, but is just a sister to VSCode, so it pretty much won't bring unique value to the table now or in the future.
It's actually open source, yes, that's great, but that's why I'm using the open build VSCodium and it works nicely. It's the only reason where I still have hopes it might be interesting at some point, since the majority of the workforce behind VSCode is, of course, Microsoft, the direction it'll take will always be driven by business, and it does show when the last few months (or more, I don't remember) the changelogs have been increasingly featuring AI integration updates, to the point a few releases had like 99% of just that, especially Copilot, that I mostly don't care for. At least some of those include creation of APIs that can be used by other extensions, but still, there's requested features waiting there that aren't about AI and for that sole fact they are just put in second place, not taken care of up to years. Perhaps a project with an actually open governance can work more towards what the community cares about, so, personally, I'd give it a few years to try it again and see how it's come along
I just tried using it with local Ollama AI - looks like the current version 1.60 has a regression breaking exactly that. And the 1.61 milestone with the fix is overdue. So, presumably the update with the fix should be delivered soon?
Yes please, give me more AI. Where do I sign?
theia-ide.org
I'd like to get away from Microsoft, so it's on my to do list, I just haven't got around to it yet. I do use Eclipse so perhaps it makes sense to use Theia as well.