Working with the Code in the DevPod Using Browser-Based IDE

This lesson shows how we can modify the code using the built-in browser-based IDE provided by the DevPod.

How can we modify the code?

We could go back to the DevPod and modify the code from a terminal. We could use vi or a similar editor for that. While I do use terminal editors quite often, I find them sub-optimum when working on a project. I believe that vi, emacs, nano, and similar editors are useful when working on individual scripts, but not that great when working on a full-fledged project. Call me lazy, but I need an IDE like the Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, Eclipse, or something similar. I need syntax highlighting, code complete, the ability to jump into a function with a single click, and other goodies provided by IDEs.

The problem is that the code we’re interested in a DevPod running inside our cluster. That means that we need to synchronize our local files from a laptop to the DevPod or we can work with the code remotely. For now, we’re interested in the latter option (we’ll explore the former later). If we are to work with remote files, and we are not (yet) going to synchronize files between our laptop and the DevPod, the only available option is to use a remote IDE (unless you want to stick to vi or some other terminal-based editor).

Working with the code remotely

We can open the IDE through the command that was given to us when we created the DevPod. But, since we already saw how easy it is to port forward with Kubernetes, we don’t need to go back to that output. We can just as easily construct our own command.

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