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Deco IDE for React Native: Now Free and Open Source (github.com)
138 points by daverecycles 3674 days ago
8 comments

This appears to be only for OS X. I use to be a big OS X user, but have come to find Linux is a far superior development platform for me.

From a comment on reddit: Most developers who use OSX do not develop for OSX/iPhone, but instead deploy 100% of their code to Linux VMs on EC2 or Digital Ocean. Their toolchain is usually 100% OSS terminal-based tools such as Vim/Emacs, tmux, clang/gcc, PHP/Python/Ruby, zsh/bash; all of which are available via Linux package managers (and have better support on Linux). While homebrew is nice, it's package selection is much smaller than APT/DNF/Pacman, and it's source-based so have fun waiting for LLVM to compile...

Eventually I realized I was basically a Linux user and I was trying to make OS X work like Linux. According to stack overflow dev surveys they show Linux experiences a 10-fold increase in usage amongst developers compared to it's typical rate of usage on the desktop. This also drew me toward Linux. OSX only experiences a two-fold increase in usage amongst developers and Windows actually experiences a large decrease in users compared to their desktop monopoly. Right now I'm developing React native applications completely in vim.

If this application ever comes out for Linux I'll definitely install it and give it a try. Only being on OS X makes it inaccessible for most developers.

This is actually a pretty interesting perspective. I hadn't really thought about how I basically use my Mac like a shiny silver Linux box. But it is so very nice and shiny... well anyway...

Deco is an Electron app, so it should build for Linux without too much trouble. None of us are Linux experts, so we'd be very happy to take any pull requests for Linux support if you have the expertise. As an indicator of demand, we have 2x the beta signups for Windows as Linux though, so we're currently prioritizing Windows support.

I've evolved into using a Mac for shiny browsing, iTunes, document reading but I've never gotten homebrew etc. to work correctly so I got a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro and dual-booted Linux for these exact reasons. It will be interesting to see if Windows 10 with Ubuntu bash captures any developer mindshare. It can be truly best of both worlds; the software the rest of the world uses plus all the developer tools in the command line.
If you don't mind, would you share the reasons for making Deco open source ? This obviously looks high quality and I guess developers would be open to pay for it.Was open sourcing the project always the intention? Not that I am complaining :)
From the beginning, we always wanted it to be free for developers. Mainly because we, as developers, want our tools to be free and open source. And an IDE is such a difficult problem that it really needs the community to make it successful.

We plan on having a commercial license for companies that want to make closed-source modifications. We like the idea of charging companies much more than charging individual developers :)

It's a long road ahead, but I've already managed to get a good deal working in Linux: https://twitter.com/louroboros/status/735569370886217728
It's pretty good and the team is pretty fun BTW :) <3
Mac only :(
It's an Electron app, so it should build for Windows without too much trouble. If you're interested, give it a shot and let us know how it goes :) None of us are Windows experts, so happy to take any pull requests for Windows support. (Or even Linux)
I'm guessing he meant Linux.
Linux support would be awesome too. Based on our beta, we got twice as many signups for Windows as Linux, so we're probably gonna prioritize Windows support unless we get a lot of sudden Linux interest.
+1 for Linux interest
Already working on getting this to run in Linux. :)

https://twitter.com/louroboros/status/735569370886217728

How are you going to make an iOS app without a Mac?
What's the point of using a cross-platform tool if you're only targeting Android?
What's the point of developing on Mac for Android if I don't like Macs?

Also, why am I facing a (partially hostile) interrogatory right now?

Sorry, not being hostile. Just curious why someone would use React Native if they don't have a Mac to build/test on iOS. Why not just go straight to Android?
Late to the party, how does this compare to https://nuclide.io/?
Yeah! I'm very excited about this.
Why are you guys using Slack for team comms? Wouldn't it be easier for all involved to be a channel on Reactiflux's Discord?
Does it matter? Slack is free and most (all?) people I know only use the free edition. No different from using GitHub. People will always use free stuff if it's there and of good quality.
It's usually a good idea to lower friction and meet your users where they are. In the case of the React community, most have Discord accounts because Reactiflux was kicked off Slack for having too many non-commercial members. (Supporting open-source projects is an explicit non-goal for Slack.)

Discord welcomes open-source communities and is quite popular in the React community. If you are adding an open-source tool to the React ecosystem, those are both good reasons to prefer Discord. I certainly wouldn't want to build an open-source community on Slack after the way they handled Reactiflux.

I haven't used Discord but it says "It’s time to ditch Skype and TeamSpeak." Skype is primarily 1-1 and not for irc. I have not heard of teamspeak but a quick google suggests it's for gamers. I don't quiet get how it replaces slack if it's replacing skype.

edit: looked into discord closer now. discord has no pricing information whatsoever. thanks, i prefer something where i pay for and hope will last.

We are open to moving to Discord. We used Slack during our private beta and so this is a continuation of that Slack channel.