Emerging Trend Of Online Development Environments

Cloud computing has drastically changed the face of technology that we experience today. Using an internet connection, Cloud services can serve various technology requirements for a business. From Saas for softwares, Iaas for infrastructural services and Paas for platforms, every technology-oriented requirement of a business can be outsourced to Cloud. Using the same concept, various SDKs can now be now subscribed on rent for making use of development suites.

Online SDK services from different providers like Cloud9 and CodeAnywhere are already in the market which provide web based development applications. These tools allow developers to code from any place and at any time while sharing their code with team-mates. Reason for the popularity of this concept is that even the minimum internet connection speed available to users nowadays is sufficient for the online SDK to function properly. Moreover, offline development required initial configuration and installation of SDK on the local drive and then migration on online environment was another effort. On the contrary, web-based SDKs don’t require any installation allowing the live web app to be migrated easily.

Even the hardware configuration requirements for deploying a development environment are not a big deal in case of online development kits. A netbook with horrible specification for an SDK can be used to develop an application. All a developer needs is a web browser. Security of the code and data is another concern well worked out by online IDEs. Everything a developer does is securely placed in a private area which can only be accessed after a user has been authenticated. This imparts the security in work of a programmer.

Another advantage of deploying Online IDE relates to the monetary concern of developers and organizations. Development suites are more often provided on license basis for a specific duration of time, Online IDEs being a cloud based service can be subscribed on rental for a small amount as compared to the cost of Offline IDE. The difference between the cost of two SKDs i.e. offline and online, increases exponentially with the requirement for a large number of platforms. The initial cost of deploying wide variety of platforms comes to be greater than renting them, which eventually helps a developer in reducing the cost of development.

The duration of testing of the developed application is also reduced by using Online IDEs. It is seen in most of the testing phases that a tester faces configuration setup problems before the process of testing is initiated. This increases the time of testing and eventually the budget of the project. However, in case of online IDE the development environment remains same throughout the network. This removes all the configuration and installation issues of AUT (Application Under Test) and assists a tester to verify different aspects of the application without consuming as much time.