Jolt Awards: Coding Tools
, January 28, 2014 The best IDEs and coding tools of the past 12 months
Finalist: Cloud9 IDE
Cloud 9 IDE is a collaborative online development environment for JavaScript and Node.js apps as well as HTML, CSS, PHP, Java, Ruby, Python and many other languages. It provides a smooth editing experience based on the ACE editor.
Its main claim to fame is that your code is kept in the cloud, which allows you to work from anywhere as well as enjoy quick and easy collaboration. It is an excellent solution for remote pair programming. Cloud 9 has integration with developer services like Git and Heroku and databases such as MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, and SQLite. Terminals provide command-line access to the machine your code is running on.
Originally, Cloud 9 was geared towards Node.js, JavaScript, and Web development. Since then, it added support for many other languages, but the maturity and features are somewhat uneven. For example, I was disappointed that Python has no debugging support. Overall, however, I recommend every developer try it. Even if it's not your ideal IDE it is a remarkable product that advances the state of the art of browser-based applications and points the way for cloud-hosted development. If you are a Node.js and JavaScript developer, it might well be your dream IDE.
Gigi Sayfan