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