Thinkserver: My web-based coding environment
10 comments
·February 10, 2025gyomu
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For the love of technology, and the love of coding, and the love of self hosting, good.
This is the way.
lvturner
I've recently discovered the joys of vscode-server[0] for this type of use case.
Which you can either serve as a WebApp direct from your machine, or tunnel in from another VSCode instance - including a webhosted version from Microsoft[1]
I may not do that much coding these days, but I already have found it handy for when I forgot to do a Git push! Just log back in to the Web Environment and everything is how I left it.
[0] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/vscode-server [1] https://vscode.dev/
notpushkin
There’s also code-server by Coder, which you can just run on your own server and open in browser directly. It’s also open source (most tunneling features in VSCode aren’t). https://github.com/coder/code-server
There’s a one-click setup for it in Lunni, a Docker dashboard I’ve been working on (shameless plug): https://lunni.dev/
janoelze
nice work! very similar to the scrappy codepen clone i built for myself, will copy a few things! I've integrated AI edits and use it suprisingly often as well to sketch out mini apps. https://endtime-instruments.org/scratch/
fodkodrasz
Nice.
One thing I couldn't unsee: The editor and the preview panels seem to have their bottoms misaligned by 1-2px.
grimui
Building custom tools that work for only you is so under rated. I would never use that workflow but it works for the author and that’s awesome!
NitpickLawyer
> Building custom tools that work for only you is so under rated.
This is one of the top applications for LLM-based dev IMO. With things like aider / cline / cursor / windsurf / bolt it's looking like this will be a lot easier to scaffold small-scale projects that make sense for you and not necessarily turn into products. It suits single-dev / small teams for now, and that's OK.
tomglynch
I’m a big fan of glitch as well, so it’s very impressive you have built the same yourself. Do you self host the server and are there any limitations on languages you can use?
cies
Nice to see another Elm enthusiast!
You must know about Ellie, right?
It does not have git integration like your project though.
Anyway, nice project!!
This is awesome. I’ve also built a number of services for myself (Pinterest style photo hosting for archival/research purposes, analytics service for my websites, tracker for the books I’ve read, message board for micro communities I’m a part of, etc). I also share them with friends who express interest in them.
The costs are minimal (they all run on a shared $4/mo instance + $10/yr domain per project) and I get to control where the data lives, the features I want to have, etc.
No need to worry about getting the rug pulled on me because the company got acquired or needs to raise revenue or anything like that. No frustration because a redesign made the UI worse or removed features I cared about.
It obviously takes a bit of time upfront, but I see it as a long term investment in my productivity. I use boring, basic, stable technologies so once something is deployed it keeps on humming with extremely minimal involvement on my behalf.
I’m basically slowly working on replacing pretty much every 3rd party app I use with something I wrote myself (it’s going to take a while but that’s okay). My grandpa was a carpenter and pretty much every piece of furniture in the house was something he or his friends had made. As software craftspeople, we should strive to do the same with our digital houses.
Kudos to the author and anyone else who does this. You don’t hear about these things in the mainstream because there’s no reason for people doing this to shout it from the rooftops, but this is software at its best.