Cloud9 Pushes Toward Mainstream

With the Node Summit for Node.js developers approaching, Cloud9 IDE announced a series of moves that cement the company’s commitment to the development environment and will help to shape Node.js into the mainstream platform of the future, the company said.

Cloud9, a provider of a development-as-a-service platform for JavaScript developers, introduced three new initiatives: a new community blog, a new official Node manual site and new training resources. Cloud9 IDE also supports HTML/CSS development as well as Ruby, PHP and Coffeescript development.

Community efforts

The community blog, known as Nodebits.org, will be edited by Tim Caswell, a prominent Node.js community member, well known for his howtonode.org blog.

Cloud9 brought Caswell in-house to help the company in its efforts to further build the Node community and make it more accessible to new members.

In a 23 January blog post, Ruben Daniels, chief executive of Cloud9 IDE Inc., said: “Beside howtonode, there is no frequently updated community website. No reliable source for news and in-depth articles about Node.js. So, today we officially launch Nodebits.org. Nodebits is a community blog, edited by Tim, which includes high-quality articles and tutorials about Node.js applications and libraries. The code examples presented can be tested and played with by loading them into Cloud9 with just a single click. Nothing to download and no compilation required.”

In addition, Daniels said there is no single source of comprehensive Node.js documentation, and most of the documentation that is available is incomplete or of insufficient quality.

Thus, “We have completely reworked many different sources of documentation into a concise and consistent website that offers a Node.js and JavaScript reference guide and manual, based on work from Joyent and Mozilla,” Daniels said.

“From now on, NodeManual.org is your destination to learn about Node.js. And, like any good community docs, Nodemanual.org is fully open. We encourage everyone in the Node community help us continue to improve the site, through your own contributions. Fork nodemanual on GitHub and get started on helping us build a better Node.js.”

Training opportunities

Meanwhile, developers seeking help in becoming better Node.js programmers can sign up at training.c9.io.

Node Summit runs from 24 to 25 January in San Francisco. The event will feature speakers from companies including Microsoft, Google, VMware, Intel, Mozilla, Yahoo, Joyent and others.

A description of the event reads: “Node Summit will bring together business leaders and technology experts to discuss Node.js’ transformative role in the future of computing. The event will also showcase solutions from a select group of startup companies that are looking towards the future by incorporating Node.js today.”