Merge pull request #6 from Xe/Xe/feat/coding-on-an-iPad
blog: add first draft of coding on an iPad
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title: Coding on an iPad
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date: 2018-04-14
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# Coding on an iPad
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As people notice, I am an avid user of Emacs for most of my professional and
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personal coding. I have things set up such that the center of my development
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environment is a shell (eshell), and most of my interactions are with emacs
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buffers from there. Recently when I purchased my iPad Pro (10.5", 512 GB, LTE,
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with Pencil and Smart Keyboard) I was very surprised to find out that there was
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such a large group of people who did a lot of their professional work from an
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iPad.
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The iPad is a remarkably capable device in its own right, even without the apps
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that let me commit to git or edit text files in git repos. Out of the gate, if
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I did not work in a primarily code-focused industry, I am certain that I could
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use an iPad for all of my work tasks and I would be more than happy with it.
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With just Notes, iWork and the other built-in apps even, you can do literally
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anything a consumer would want out of a computing device.
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As projects and commitments get more complicated though, you begin to want to
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be able to write code from it. My Macbook died recently, and as such I've
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taken the time to try to get to learn how the iPad workflow is a little more
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hands-on (this post is being written from my iPad even).
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So far I have written the following projects either mostly or completely from
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this iPad:
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- https://github.com/withinsoft/ventriloquist
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- https://github.com/Xe/arrival
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- https://git.xeserv.us/xena/register
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- https://github.com/Xe/when-then-zen (more on this in another blogpost)
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I seem to have naturally developed two basic workflows for developing from this
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iPad: my "traditional" way of ssh-ing into a remote server via [Prompt][prompt]
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and then using emacs inside tmux and the local way of using [Texastic][texastic]
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for editing text, [Working Copy][workingcopy] to interact with Git, and [Workflow][workflow]
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and some custom JSON HTTP services to allow me to hack things together as
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needed.
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## The Traditional Way
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Honestly, there's not much exciting here, thankfully. The only interesting
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thing in this regard (besides the lack of curses mouse support REALLY being
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apparent given the fact that the entire device is a screen) is that the lack
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of the escape key on the smart keyboard means I need to hit command-grave
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instead. This has been fairly easy to remap my brain to, the fact that the
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iPad keyboard lacks the room for a touchpad seems to be enough to give my brain
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a hint that I need to hit that instead of escape.
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This feels like developing on any other device, just this device is much more
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portable and I can't test changes locally. It enforces you keeping all of your
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active project in development in the cloud. With this workflow, you can
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literally stop what you were doing on your desktop, then resume it on the iPad
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at Taco Bell. A friend of mine linked [his blogpost on his cloud-based workflow][ceruleiscloud]
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and this iPad driven development feels like a nice natural extension to it.
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It's the tools I know and love, just available when and wherever I am thanks to
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the LTE.
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## iPad-local Development
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Of all of the things to say going into owning an iPad, I never thought I'd say
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that I like the experience of developing from it locally. Apple has done a
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phenomenal job at setting up a secure device. It is hard to run arbitrary
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unsigned code on it.
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However, development is more than just running the code, development is also
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_writing_ it. For writing the code, I've been loving Texastic and Working Copy:
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Texastic is pretty exciting. It's a simple text editor, but it also supports
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reading both arbitrary files from the iCloud drive and arbitrary files from
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programs like Working Copy. In order to open a file up in Texastic, I
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navigate over to it in Working Copy and then hit the "Share" button and tap
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on "Open in Texastic". By default this option is pretty deep down the menu, so
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I have moved it all the way up to the beginning of the list. Then I literally
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just type stuff in and every so often the changes get saved back to Working
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Copy. Then I commit when I'm done and push the code away.
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This is almost precisely my existing workflow with the shell, just with
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Working Copy and Texastic instead.
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There are downsides to this though. Not being able to test your code locally
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means you need to commit frequently. This can lead to cluttered commit graphs
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which some people will complain about. Rebasing your commits before merging
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branches is a viable workaround however. There is no code completion, gofmt or
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goimports. There doesn't seem to be any advanced manipulation or linting tools
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available for Texastic either. I understand that there are fundamental
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limitations involved when developing these kinds of mobile apps, but I wish
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there was something I could set up on a server of mine that would let me at
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least get some linting or formatting tooling running for this.
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Workflow is very promising, but at the time of writing this article I haven't
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really had the time to fully grok it yet. So far I have some glue that lets me
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do things like share URL's/articles to a Discord chatroom via a webhook (the
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iPad Discord client causes an amazing amount of battery life reduction for me),
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find the currently playing song on Apple Music on Youtube, copy an article into
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my Notes, turn the currently active thing into a PDF, and some more that I've
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been picking up and tinkering with as things go on.
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There are some limitations in Workflow as far as I've seen. I don't seem to be
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able to log arbitrary health events like mindfulness meditation via Workflow as
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the Health app doesn't seem to let you do that directly. I was kinda hoping
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that Workflow would let me do that. I've been wanting to log my mindfulness
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time with the Health app, but I can't find an app that acts as a dumb timer
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without an account for web syncing. I'd love to have a few quick action
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workflows for logging 10 minutes of anapana, metta or a half hour of more
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focused work.
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## Conclusion
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The iPad is a fantastic developer box given its limitations. If you just want
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to get the code or blogpost out of your head and into the computer, this device
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will help you focus into the task at hand so you can just hammer out the
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functionality. You just need to get the idea and then you just act on it.
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There's just fundamentally fewer distractions when you are actively working
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with it.
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You just do thing and it does thing.
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[prompt]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prompt-2/id917437289?mt=8
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[texastic]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textastic-code-editor-6/id1049254261?mt=8
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[workingcopy]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/working-copy/id896694807?mt=8
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[workflow]: https://www.workflow.is
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[ceruleiscloud]: https://elliot.pro/blog/working-in-the-cloud.html
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