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Which is the best IDE for a smartphone.

Gregory Sequeira on September 14, 2018

Hello dev.to community,

Can you help me select a good IDE for my smartphone which can integrate projects with my github account? (Need it to code on-the-go)

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

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bgadrian profile image
Adrian B.G.

While commuting you can read books, open source code, listen to podcasts or listen to courses. you will get better time investment than to type code on a phone (which will be frustrating and slow).

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Adrian B.G.

PS: I recognize, admire and congrats your desire to evolve. I myself read a few books while commuting as a junior.

Trust me, with 1h daily learning time you can achieve many things in life, including a next step in your career every one two years.

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Zack Dunn

While commuting you can read books, open source code, listen to podcasts or listen to courses

Which often brings up ideas and makes me want to get some code down. There's no reason it has to be frustrating and slow. Nobody has done any work to make a decent experience there. Virtual keyboards have come a long way, but only by optimizing for casual typing.

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Jon Bray

Instead of getting code down, it's most important to get the flow of the algorithm down. You can and should write code in your dev environmental, not your phone.

A common misconception is that code comes first... Algorithms come first. I would recommend any organizational manager or notepad for this. Get your algorithms down, determine your data structure, but until you're at your setup it's not very productive to write code on a smartphone. Algorithm and Data management is best done here.

Any text editor will work, but Mindly is a great app for linking ideas, and project management. Though it isn't designed for writing algorithms, it's nested interface makes it great for that purpose.

If you're set on writing code on your phone (again, I'll say IMO you can better use this time preparing for writing code), your best bet is writing an app that uses gesture commands to create classes, methods, etc.

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bgadrian profile image
Adrian B.G.

Yes, you can build the code in your head, and when at a PC is just a matter of typing.

Or you can buy a 13" laptop ..

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x8core profile image
x8core • Edited

You say to me that ship is good, submarine is not necessary.

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loca94 profile image
Loca94

Which podcasts could you guys recommend me?

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bgadrian profile image
Adrian B.G.

There are specifics posts that answer that question, check them out (on dev.to).

I don't listen to podcasts, I'm a youtube guy, but softwareengineeringdaily.com/ is on my TODO list.

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Luka • Edited

I agree with you. This time could be better used for reading or listening than to code.

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x8core profile image
x8core

No

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fitri profile image
Fitri

If you are okay with command line interface and vim. I recommend Termux. It's a terminal emulator that runs a version of Linux. It's not exactly complete but it has everything I needed; SSH, Git and Vim. It even has the exact vim config and plugins as in my server and macbook. I always have trouble doing work in public transport though and would rather read.

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Eduardo Justi

Termux is awesome, I used that app a lot while I didn't have a proper desktop. It helped me in many ways, I was able to learn and code in many programming languages, I could connect to SSH servers, hack configuration files, test out open source programs and much more. This app is a lifesaver!

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Gregory Sequeira

Will check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!

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sheminusminus profile image
Emily Kolar • Edited

Coda. It’s amazing. SSH, console, web preview, almost full-featured IDE, and will sync projects to and from desktop app if you use it.

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Gregory Sequeira

Sounds worth looking into. Thanks!

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mohamedelidrissi profile image
Mohamed Elidrissi

AIDE: an IDE for java / Android with limited functionnalities.
AIDE Web: a small editor for html/css/javascript
Icode-Go: a text editor and php/mysql web IDE.
Java-N-Ide: another IDE for java
CPP-N-Ide: an IDE for c/c++

Who said you can't code on mobile!

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Benny Leung • Edited

You may think dont't waste time on bus / train.

But it's difficulty, because:

  • Can't build code in android / iphone
  • Remote with non-stable network
  • Have a great IDE

So you may write down your logic in txt and implement at home
better than write code in mobile

If you only want some sytanx highlight
gitlab "web IDE" can be a choice
(actually it only has sytanx highlight)

Sorry of my English

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Gregory Sequeira

Thanks Benny!

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Nader Jafari

Actually you can build java using eclipse compiler and run it using dalvik both with termux
(Note that you can run cli and sun-less only)

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Alessandro

Maybe you can create or buy a VPS (like the ones offered by CodeAnywhere) where you can connect remotely and edit your code through VIM. Obviously all the compilation and execution need to be made manually, but that will also help you to be better at the command line.

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x8core profile image
x8core

This is shit

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drbearhands profile image
DrBearhands

While I agree with this, it's an interesting thought experiment to think about what kind of IDE would work well on a smartphone. I'm sure Gregory isn't the only one wishing to do more during a cramped commute. E.g. UE4 had a kind of graph editor that worked pretty well for a bunch of cases and could be converted easily into code. For certain declarative language there might be a 1-to-1 correspondence between code and graphs.

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x8core profile image
x8core

Not bad for beginning

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rishabhpatni1108 profile image
RISHABHPATNI1108

The best IDE I came across while searching for IDEs on mobile is Dcoder, Dcoder let you code in 30 plus language. And it has great UI than all other apps.

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gregorys100 profile image
Gregory Sequeira

Xiaomi MI A1. Android.

I spend about 3 hours commuting daily, so thought I could use that time to sharpen my skills.

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carstengehling profile image
Carsten Gehling

That's what laptops are for...

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saint4eva profile image
saint4eva
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Gregory Sequeira

I have an android. But thanks anyway, maybe someday.....

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Nick Karnik

You should carry a notebook and draw your ideas as high-level boxes and arrows. Perhaps even write code. Maybe create an ide to scan that code and run it, haha.

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Ashraf AbulSoud

you can try coder (code-server).. it is VS Code hosted on the cloud
and you can host it yourself in any vps
i have used it for my last project and it was awsome

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Rana Ahmed

Do you know any tutorial for setting up vs-code on a server

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Glen Surtees

Why not just write in pseudocode and then code it properly once you get to where you are going?

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x8core

You often can’t pseudocode thinks you doing for example for the first time.

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Sethu Senthil

A computer.

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x8core profile image
x8core

No.

 
gregorys100 profile image
Gregory Sequeira

Will definitely check it out. Thanks!

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JasonBenfrin

I know im a late to say this but theres something called dcoder. It requires internet connection though.