Hi everybody, So i have recently completed front-end training and ready to start back-end development. First thing i have to do is create an account on Cloud 9. Why is it necessary to use Cloud 9, can i use my own desktop environment for the tutorials/tasks?
Just to note that i am familiar with command line, and been using npm (and other tools like bower, webpack etc) for my front-projects already.
Cloud9 allows collaboration with other coders. It is also internet facing so when you preview your app it is running on the web. It has a command line interface so you can run your necessary cli commands.
If you’re already using Node, then don’t worry about it. There’s a number of reasons that someone might not want to/be able to work locally (we have campers who are on mobile devices or using public computers, for example).
From a teaching standpoint, environment stuff is tricky. If we suggest a specific, uniform environment then we can give specific instructions.
while you can do the exercises anywhere (locally)…basically you do have to have an active/online site hosting your projects to submit a link for them to be tested. This is the back-end projects part…
No glitch.com is a different website. You can actually host node apps there.
Cloud9 they are hosted but will become dormant when you close down Cloud9.
@mubaidr,
I assume you’re doing the back-end projects on FreeCodeCamp and not betaFreeCodeCamp. FCC has transitioned over to Glitch.com from Cloud9. Not sure why but Cloud9 requires a credit card. I switched to Beta after I finished my frontend and almost completed Data Visual Certification and it recommends Glitch.com. Glitch.com is a nice web development platform. You can do your projects on your desktop. Either make them available online for testing or copy them over to a Glitch project. If you use Glitch, to install NPMs in your package.json file use the add package button to install each one.
I like Glitch. It worked for me until I made it to the Voting App. I tried pulling in all the dependencies for a basic Mongoose Express Node app and started running up against the project memory limits.
For the full-stack projects I’ve moved back to local dev with a Github repo and Heroku hosting.
Honestly you shouldn’t, a local development environment, Git, and screensharing should be enough, if not check out the plugin Atom Pair (https://atom.io/packages/atom-pair) which does the same thing that Cloud9 does except no credit card required and lets you use your local development environment.