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2013: The year of the browser-based IDE


By Alex Handy


 Alex Handy
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November 19, 2012 —  (Page 1 of 2)
It's déjà vu all over again, as the Eclipse Foundation released version 1.0 of a new IDE originally created by IBM. But this time, the IDE lives on a server and in your browser. The Orion Project hit version 1.0 on Oct. 29, heralding a new era of browser-based development.

While Orion isn't yet in a place where developers can toss out their existing IDEs, it's still maturing at an accelerated rate, and, as with all open-source software, the community will be the deciding factor in its success. But from the perspective of existing Eclipse users, the potential for a Web-based tool platform is definitely enticing.

Harish Grama, vice president of product development at IBM Rational, hoped that Orion will be popular with the RIA crowd. He's in charge of the team that developed Orion, and he said that in five years, he would like to see this as the main way of doing rich Internet applications. “I'd like to see it adopted by a lot of the companies in that space, and for this to be open source and open standards-based, and with a thriving community contributing to it,” he said.

The road map for Orion is fairly steep now that version 1.0 has arrived. The team is planning for a February 2013 release of version 2.0, and has similarly rapid plans for future point releases.

Orion is a completely standalone attempt to build an Eclipse-like tool platform on the Web, without any of the existing Eclipse baggage. “We came to the conclusion that just taking Eclipse and making that ‘webified’ was not the right design decision,” said Grama. “People who live on the Web expect certain behaviors and aren't tied to one server. This version deals more with all the Web principles, and stays away from the SWT and Eclipse way of doing things.”

While Orion has gathered a following, and has even spawned IDE-as-a-Service startup Cloudifier, it’s still too focused on experts, according to Freddy May, founder and CEO of Application Craft, a provider of a mobile desktop in the cloud. He said that Orion is for very knowledgeable coders, and not yet ready for the front-line novice and intermediate developers. Specifically, he said his company aims to build a tool that is usable by developers who may be longing for the days of Visual Basic.


Related Search Term(s): Eclipse, IDEs, Orion

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