Re: Online Lua IDE - is it a good idea?

[Alek Paunov <alex@...>]

On 05.02.2012 17:18, Fabien wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 5:22 PM, Alek Paunov<alex@declera.com>  wrote:
> > especially the module authors? [...] more easy start for beginners
>
> There's a contradiction here :)

Indeed :-), Let raise the bar little higher than c9.io then:

Let suppose existence of the "profile" feature as named set of 
dependencies: system packages (including '-devel' ones if needed) + 
concrete Lua engine + set of Lua modules with specified version or VCS 
revision. Let assume that a service user can "clone" the given Module 
Author MA1 profile P1 (i.e. the context in which developed module M1 is 
already tested). Some usage scenarios could be:

* MA1 announces the new features in M1; Interested List member MA2 
clones P1 and M1, starts playing in minutes, shares his suggestions.

* Some project leader or just individual user U1 spots M1 somewhere. He 
wants to try something (before buy :-) i.e. install the things in the 
his local environment to the working level). U1 clones P1/M1, prepares 
his case (as P2 if the case pulls additional dependencies) publish the 
case (as gist, as example) and asks MA1 (smart or not so) questions. MA1 
possibly fixes the gist and/or M1 and answers.

* MA1 wants to adapt M1 to different Lua engine or just wants to test 
things in the given distro environment(s) which the service provides 
currently.

Does any of these make sense? (once assume that some magical business 
model manages to backup the supposed above heavy feature, of course :-))

Also, the answer depends on what you mean
> by "valuable". My guess is, such an editor is valuable on a SaaS platform,
> to offer customization options to non-developer power-users (typically the
> kind of people who write Excel macros, but don't know anything about
> maintainability).

Maybe plus another one category: As Steve says as a "try and buy" option 
for number of average level coders, coming from other backgrounds (which 
belongs to emerging migration wave, especially from "classic" web 
application backgrounds - mod_perl, mod_php, jsp, etc to something more 
convenient for the "new" style message oriented applications).

Thanks for the comments,
Alek