Koding(en)'s been on my radar a while since they're in a vaguely similar space (lightweight virtualization).<p>But as a coder, I could never for the life of me figure out what Koding is for. Apparently the Koding team doesn't know either.<p>It's a bunch of (admittedly cool) tech features thrown in a box and shaken up a bit. Now the team is scratching their heads about what it is they've built, trying to justify their investment money. Koding is a fine example of a "sitcom" startup in YC parlance [1]: social virtualized viral cloud coding, just because.<p>So that's my analysis. If anyone from the Koding team reads this, here's my advice: Stop. Take a machete to 80% of the product. Figure out what it is that you're great at, and that people really, really want. Then you won't need to be making silly goggle videos or tragic blog posts like this one.<p>[1] <a href="http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html</a>
Hi all, I'm one of the Koding developers. I've posted this as a comment but thought It would be helpful to the question of "What Koding is?"<p>Basically, <a href="http://koding.com" rel="nofollow">http://koding.com</a> offers full vm with root support and a web-terminal (again just like a desktop terminal) to access this it. What does it mean? It is a full featured Ubuntu where you can install any stack you want. Want to play with Redis? No problem just do apt-get install redis-server. Want to try to use vim? Just type vim and enter. You see that only your imagination stops you here.<p>Not only this it has the concept of "Apps" that let you install custom webapps inside Koding, which can access your VM. For example there is the Rails Dashboard app that let you deploy and setup Rails instances with just one click. There is the Teamwork app, which is a collaborative way to work with your friends, basically you can share and play together on the same editor and terminal! Just think how great this is, you basically can mentor someone, you can get help to develop your app and so on.<p>Well not only this, there is also Groups where you can work and share your with your friends,class,team, etc.. Groups are awesome because they are totally separated from Koding and you can control and give access control to each of the member of the groups. This are basically subreddits with their own members and culture. Also VM's can be shared amongst the members, which makes it awesome to work together on projects.<p>This is just a sneak peek and many other features are on the way. Just give it a try please and see yourself how many great things
The title of this post is more informative than the Koding homepage or even the docs themselves. A clearer message about why I should sign up is critical.<p>After watching the video, I did understand what Koding was solving and was excited by it's potential. But, that message needs to be communicated more clearly when visiting the Koding homepage.<p>From the docs:<p>"Koding offers nearly unlimited possibilities; so many in fact, that people often misunderstand what Koding is being designed for. "<p>This seems aloof. I feel that this is more explanatory of what Koding offers:<p>"Koding provides free hosted VMs for development to anyone. The Koding VMs provide you with a real Ubuntu OS, with a real Terminal, and allow you to work on real code. Python, PHP, C++, C, it doesn't matter. Even better, they are online. Accessible from anywhere in the world. Even sharable with teams."<p>On a side note, would it be possible to offer offline capability? Perhaps allowing users to download/upload Vagrant VMs configured with Puppet.
To actually get to the site you need to go to <a href="http://www.koding.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.koding.com</a>, there didn't seem to be any link in the docs.<p>The fact they publicly say its free does not strike me as a strength, how are they going to pay the bills to store all of my data?<p>It looks like it started life as an online php editor (kodingen.com) but now has broadened out to supporting vms with 'social' stuff.<p>Some of the main competitors are:
- <a href="https://c9.io/" rel="nofollow">https://c9.io/</a>
- <a href="http://compilr.com" rel="nofollow">http://compilr.com</a>
- <a href="https://codenvy.com" rel="nofollow">https://codenvy.com</a><p>The general experience after playing with it for a few minutes is quite nice, robust file tree, good editor (ace), interesting news feed.
This is useful for me. I don't really care about the social features etc but the core product seems good.<p>What is the business plan? I don't want it to be advertising or selling information about me.<p>The documentation could be better. The site looks very slick but doesn't really lay out the basics. For instance, just reading, I wasn't sure whether or not files are stored between VM runs (i.e. being able to save my work and configurations for use in later sessions).<p>The site (koding.github.io) doesn't even link to the main page (koding.com).<p>Side note: start ups have terrible names. What's wrong with using actual words?
I watched the video and am none the wiser. What is the problem that koding solves? It seems like some sort of groupware social network thing for dev teams with a vm hosting thing bolted on.
There is an public announcment: <a href="http://blog.koding.com/2013/08/koding-is-public/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.koding.com/2013/08/koding-is-public/</a>
I already felt in love with Koding, but I had some connection issues while using it, kinda bothering.<p>But the service still lovely, looking forward to see it get more stable through the years.
Hey guys, Koding developer here, thanks for the comments, there are some really valuable ones that we should consider doing. Would gladly answer the questions, if any?
This page abort on Chrome/WinXP. It works on firefox. Checking the page source code the only thing strange I see is a font hosted on googleapis.com
I tried to register with github and now it just loops a popup that closes immediately forever when I try to sign in with github or register with github. Cool.<p>Update:
Tried it in my unprotected chrome and after a few bumps got it working. Once you are signed in the demo is pretty good.
Koding looks interesting, however my interest in the project died after waiting several months to get into the beta but hearing nothing and seeing no changes to their site. I'd still love to try it though, but I won't hold my breathe.
The news stream on <a href="http://www.koding.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.koding.com</a> is broken as new content is simply inserted at the top and whatever you're trying to read is jumping around randomly.
You guys should try <a href="http://www.CodeAnywhere.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.CodeAnywhere.net</a>, free online code editor that connects via ftp, dropbox and has a built in sandbox as well.
You liked how the NSA was copying all your emails from Google mail, and all your sources from github. You will love how they'll introduce backdoors in your programs while you write them with Koding!
i can see the advantage over having to set up my own vm or os install... but by targetting an os which, to a very close approximation nobody uses, I can't help but wonder what their target audience really is.<p>nobody who wants to make software for a living i'd imagine... although i guess it could work really well for web hosting type stuff where the crippling choice of OS is irrelevant?