Update: I’m still using this setup a year later - you can read on at iPad+Linode: 1 Year Later
On September 19th, I said goodbye to my trusty MacBook Pro and started developing exclusively on an iPad + Linode 512. This is the surprising story of a month spent working in the cloud.
It all started when I bought my first MacBook a couple of years ago. Frustrated by the inconsistent usage of ctrl/alt/option/arrow keys to jump words and screens and lines, I searched for a new IDE. Instead, I found Vim and fell in love. This isn’t another gushing post about Vim-oh-how-I-love-you-my-sweet-darling, but it’s important to the story - as we’ll see in a moment.
Although I like to use Python and GAE for my own projects, at work we write heavyweight C++/Qt code that runs on clusters such as the 200,000 processor Jaguar machine, so most of my time is spent in Linux and a lot of it on remote systems. Typically I’d develop in MacVim locally and run my code in VMWare Fusion or remotely.
One fateful day, VMWare and OS/X conspired to trash my shared filesystem, losing several days of uncommitted code in the process. I was angry.
While dd was recovering as much as it could, I started toying with the idea of giving up on local filesystems altogether. To my surprise, it seemed possible - even plausible.
I just had to try.
The Setup
It turns out you need a little more than just an iPad and a dream, but not too much more:
- iPad 2 (16Gb, WiFi)
- Apple wireless keyboard
- Stilgut adjustable angle stand/case
- iSSH
- Linode 512 running Ubuntu 11.04
- Apple VGA adapter
Total cost: around $800 + $20 per month
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I typically start my day by catching up on the bug tracker chatter, mercurial diffs and other emails with the iPad in one hand while lying on the Combinat56 sofa.
I actually hate the Mail app for this; the stupid animation when archiving posts adds unnecessary delay and the archive button is uncomfortably placed at the top of the screen. More recently I’ve been scanning mails over IMAP with a python script instead.
Next, I lazily swipe to Safari and review my tickets for the day in our web-based bug tracker then return to the keyboard and fire off a couple of emails before settling back into coding - the new four-finger swipe gestures in iOS5 have really improved my life.
But we were talking about coding, which brings us back to Vim.
Vim: My Home from Home
Perhaps the only reason this transition has been so smooth was because my favourite editor / IDE looks and feels almost exactly the same running on an iSSH console as it did running locally on my Macbook. iSSH supports xterm-256color, which means you can still have pleasant colour schemes despite working in a terminal. All my plugins are there, my code-completion, quick navigation and so on.
In short, it’s a seamless transition from my MacVim envionment. If I were developing OS/X apps with Xcode, or used Eclipse or Visual Studio regularly this change would probably have killed me.
As it happens, working in the terminal on a remote Linode is even better than working locally, thanks to the magic of GNU screen.
GNU Screen is Magic
GNU screen is like a window manager for your terminal sessions, giving you multiple tabs, searchable history, activity/idle notifications and - best of all - persistence.
So I fire up iSSH, tap on my Linode connection and reconnect to the already running screen session. All my terminal tabs are exactly where I left them. Other SSH tunnels are still set up. My cursor is still in the same position. The clipboard is as I left it. It’s as if I never