[Someone1234]

Edit code directly on Azure Services (e.g. Azure Functions) and real-time test the results of the changes. Aside from that just convenience for developers if you want to develop across multiple devices with internet connectivity (or using an iPad's web-browser), and as an alternative to a remote VM/Nano on a terminal.

The use case for VSCode Online is the same as any other remote development environment, combine it with deployment workflows and or integrated services like Azure and it practically sells itself. Just like Slack the secret sauce here isn't the service itself, it is how it ties into everything else.

[windsurfer]

What other remote development environments exist? I can only think of cloud9.

[Someone1234]

Nano/vim/emacs/etc over a remote (SSH) terminal, remote VM, or remote session via other means (e.g. VNC/RDC/etc). People use Visual Studio itself remotely via VMs and RDC.

[tluyben2]

Yep, I use Remotix on a remote mac on my ipad pro. It works well mostly. When the bandwidth is not sufficient, it really drives one up a wall ofcourse...

[kkarakk]

When you spend 1000s of dollars to get the dev experience we had at the dawn of the age of computing lol

[tluyben2]

Yes :) Isn't modern computing excellent?

One quite significant difference though; portability.

Also not quite $1000s; $800 for the ipad (and a $400 one would do fine) and $20/mo for the mac. Beats a mbp most of the time in a modern 4g/wifi environment. Ofcourse there are many caveats; embedded programming, game programming, mobile app testing etc. But I still do about 60-70% (depending) on it; it's great for building / testing / deploying API's and some months that's all I do.

[0xakhil]

I think embedded programming would be possible once web browsers start supporting USB devices.

[z3t4]

Or any editor/IDE via ssh -X (the window's show locally while the app runs on the server)