Hi everyone, I'm the developer here. I made it to scratch my itch: an iPad app for managing gists. And, the Heroku deployment is just the additional feature. You can use it to deploy your micro web sites or web services.
This looks awesome. Congrats. Just wondering, why do you pick browser as the IDE? (as a background, I've been developing iPad IDE called Worqshop).
It's an honest question. How does the IDE perform using the iPad Safari? I thought about doing web-based IDE but found the performance very slow in my testing. Ultimately, it boils down to native vs web apps.
Nevertheless, kudos to you. I know that doing front-end web UI, dealing with AWS, and provisioning the boxes, are not trivial problems.
Edit: Just to preempt, yes, I know my app restricts developers to use iPad :)
Ups... reading the comments below... you will be providing SSH access to the VMs
Hi Alec, I'm sorry about this. Could you please send me an email. There is a bug where Worqshop crashes if you have empty projects on GitHub. It's a known issue and I'm fixing it at this very minute. Thanks. Donny
I've been developing Heroku and GitHub integration for months, at the expense of a better editor. But what people want is a better editor: themes, vim keybinding, extra keyboard, etc :) I'll try to do it after I finish with the server side code execution.
Oh, I need to clarify. In my mind, it's like a shell, eg Python shell or Ruby shell. And execution here refers to the traditional execution of programs / scripts. I don't plan to become a PaaS like Heroku that handles web apps execution.
Most probably after this, I'll add server side execution (since Apple doesn't allow execution of downloaded code on iPad)
Thus, you can run Python, Ruby, etc from the iPad. Worqshop will transfer the code to server, execute, and bring the results back to the iPad. Seamlessly and transparently.
Hmm.. Not at the moment. I need to think about it. I'm a bit wary to add additional keys. On landscape, the text window becomes a bit too small to my liking. But. I'll think about it.
Disclaimer: I'm doing something similar http://worqshop.com. The difference is the angle. It's not just a text editor with file transfer (FTP, Dropbox, etc.). I'm doing an IDE for the iPad. With GitHub support (and soon, Heroku deployment).
At the moment, iPad is not very good as a development environment, since Apple doesn't allow you to compile / run code on the iPad directly. You need backend support (e.g. cloud) that allows you to edit / compile / run code on the iPad.
But an iPad with multi touch interface and a bluetooth keyboard opens up a lot of interesting possibilities as an IDE. For example, the multi touch interface allows you to choose colour graphically (see http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Screen-Colors.png ). Rather than experimenting with different values of RGB, you can just tap it.
I'm still building Worqshop. Thus, I'm not using the iPad as a development tool. I still need Xcode and my Mac :)
At the moment, I'm using Worqshop to edit some HTML/CSS on GitHub, building HTML5 apps with Worqshop + GitHub + StackMob…..
And soon, with Heroku deployment support, I can write Ruby / Python apps on my iPad and deploy it to Heroku.
Footnote 1: I still think the bluetooth keyboard is necessary for fast typing. I can't type very fast with the on screen keyboard
Footnote 2: I still prefer to code using text rather than using graphical items (i.e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language ). Simply because text is a very compact representation of the semantics of code. As an example, to represent the semantic of "if / then / else" you only need a few lines of code. But with visual programming language, you need a bunch of nodes with graphs, etc. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ktechlab_FlowCode.png )
I've been implementing an iPad code editor with GitHub support, http://worqshop.com/ It's quite basic but you can do cool things with GitHub web hooks, etc.
I applied for YC W12 with a sure-bet idea of RFS 5 (development on handhelds). I didn't get an interview (granted, the software wasn't finished yet). It was kinda heart-broken, but it _drove_ me. I did crazy hours to get http://worqshop.com released. Now, I'm going to apply for S12.
And, may I add, their support is great as well. I received great replies and feedback during the implementation of my app, shameless plug: http://worqshop.com
Choose an emoji and put it on your customized t-shirt
Stack: Ember, Stripe, AWS Lambda, plus other AWS services... It's kinda fun building something "physical" :)