ChromeBook as Development Environment: YMMV
[Depracated post]
This post is inteneded to kick off a thread of posts regarding my own experiences in beginning to use my chromebook for my work as a full-stack web developer, and as my office has announced that working in the office will be discouraged for probably a year. So I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the heroes of the front-line in these unprecedented times of battle.
I am excited to start this new category of writings. Ok, but why? So, for a while now, I have been patiently waiting Google’s linux support on my old, but reliable Acer Chromebook (C910-C37P) which would really tip the scales and make me want to invest time and energy in making this work.
During our excursions expect to touch on common issues including IDEs, linux command line, http server, angularJS cli, and more. Here are a list of the choicest capabilities.
- The Web Server for Chrome App does an elegant job of letting you host any file on your machine (ergo, your whole google drive) over http protocol. It simply hosts on 127.0.0.1:8887. Great for using any folder as a playground or a more complex static file tool. Sound boring? keep in mind that the static files could easily include ajax calls to any external api json/xml endpoints!
- VISUAL STUDIO CODE!!! Yup. With the linux support you can put VS code right on your chrome OS shelf and have it open to your linux file folder structure. sweet!
- Full Angular CLI support. Again, with the help of the linux support, installation is fairly straight-forward! More front-end sweetness.
Other features we can explore include more fundamental things like Remote Desktop (with both its bumps and its power), auto page refresh so your local code changes are automatically visible in your chrome browser as you make (and break) them.
Looking forward!
Pete
