Haupz Blog

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Mobile IDE

2023-07-21 — Michael Haupt

iPads are nice, and the iPad Pro is a rather powerful laptop substitute - almost. While it’s really well possible to do office style work on an iPad, anything software engineering becomes hard, because IDEs involving compiling and running code on the device, as well as convenient things command line interfaces, aren’t supported on the platform. The manufacturer wants it so.

There are web IDEs. Unfortunately, they’re a bit frustrating to use when travelling (e.g., on a train in Germany, or on an airplane).

Raspberry Pi to the rescue. Of course. These machines are small, lightweight, don’t consume too much power, and are yet fairly capable as Linux computers. Real IDEs run on them. Compiling and running code on them isn’t a problem either.

The Tech Craft channel on YouTube has this neat overview of a mobile setup that combines the best of both worlds, using the Linux goodness of a Pi and the user interface of an iPad. It’s tempting.

Tags: work, the-nerdy-bit, hacking