Naming Remote Development offering
Problem to solve
~"group::editor" has been working on a new feature category that, up to this point, we have been calling Remote Development. The problem is that Remote Development is a fairly broad concept. While it may or may not stick as the category name, we need a customer-facing way to describe the feature that delivers a server runtime environment meant to replace your local development environment.
The goal would be to have something we can use when writing documentation or comparing features against competitors. Hypothetically, something like:
- "Connect the Web IDE to a [BLANK] to unlock the full power of the IDE in your browser."
- "In the Web IDE, click the Start [BLANK] button to create a new remote development environment from your project's configuration file."
- "Where GitHub's Codespaces requires an Azure backend, a GitLab [BLANK] can be hosted on any number of cloud providers."
- "A GitLab [BLANK] can be hosted on your existing cloud or you can take advantage of our shared fleet, billed at $X/hr."
Proposal
We should co-opt the term Workspace to refer to these remote environments in the product and throughout our documentation.
- "Connect the Web IDE to a Workspace to unlock the full power of the IDE in your browser."
- "In the Web IDE, click the Start
Workspacebutton to create a new remote development environment from your project's configuration file." - "Where GitHub's Codespaces requires an Azure backend, a GitLab Workspaces can be hosted on any number of cloud providers."
- "A GitLab Workspace can be hosted on your existing cloud or you can take advantage of our shared fleet, billed at $X/hr."
Justifcation
In a customer's mind, this is a cloud-based copy of their local work environment. It's not simply the code, but all dependencies, database connections, testing suites, and so on. A full stack of tools that make up a ... workspace. Many competitors are also aligning around "Space" to denote the remote environment in which their customers can interact with an IDE and their source code.
Competitive analysis
| Competitor | What they call it |
|---|---|
| GitHub | Codespace |
| Gitpod | Workspace, CDE |
| JetBrains | Space / Dev Environment / Workspace |
| Eclipse | Workspace |
| Stackblitz | EngineBlock, WebContainer |
| Cloud9 | Workspace |
| Codesandbox | Environment |
| Cloud Workstations |
Hurdles
| Hurdle | Mitigation |
|---|---|
The big one: We already have a group named Workspace. |
As explored in gitlab-org/ux-research#1608 (closed), we could re-name that concept. |
| Workspace may be too vague for copyright or trademark purposes | Maybe that's okay? |
Internally, the term workspace shows up a lot in the VS Code codebase, which could lead to confusion |
We have to be precise and use the right terminology in the right context |
Alternate names
Ok, some of these are really bad. Let's just get it all out there and see if anything works.
- DevSpace, Devspace, or Dev Space
- Space
- CodeLab
- Workbench
- CodeCloud
- Cloudspace or Cloud Space
- Cloud Environment
- Environment
- Stack
- CloudStack or Cloud Stack
- Host
- Web IDE Server
- Workstations
- Cloud Workstations