Developers thrive when they are able to collaborate, get feedback from their peers, and work in an open space. At least that is the theory behind Glitch, a new coding website launched from Fog Creek Software, a team collaboration and development tools provider.
“Anybody who’s ever made something they’re proud of can tell you: People do their best work in collaboration with other creative people. That’s a lesson that is especially important when it comes to making new technology. And that’s why we made Glitch. It’s a brand-new community where anybody can build the app of their dreams,” Anil Dash, CEO of Fog Creek Software, wrote in a post.
Glitch, formerly known as Gomix, is designed to make it easier for professional to novice coders to build and collaborate with one another. It aims to allow developers to build any app they can imagine, invite their friends and colleagues to collaborate in real-time, and ensure your app is automatically running. “And behind all that is a smart and inclusive community of creators, who’ll help you when you get stuck, and collaborate with you to make your ideas real, Dash wrote.
Dash believes Glitch differs from other development environments because it gives a more real-time feel like editing in Google Docs rather than having developers review pull requests, provision services, or manage infrastructure.
It features a community directory of apps, support for almost every device, and support for importing and exporting GitHub projects.
“If you’ve never coded before: Glitch is the place to start. We’ve got a friendly and welcoming community (we don’t tolerate people being jerks) and you start by remixing apps that already work, running on real web servers that you don’t have to learn how to manage. If you do get stuck, anyone in the Glitch community can come in and offer to help, just as easy as raising your hand,” Dash wrote.
In addition, Dash announced the release of Glitch for your API, a set of free tools to start promoting platforms to other developers. It features real-time coding collaboration like Glitch, an unlimited number of sample projects or example apps, tools to import from GitHub, and ability to embed any Node.js project.
“Glitch For Your API is so much better than the ways we’ve been doing API evangelism in the past that smart companies are already making use of its features today,” Dash wrote.
In the future, Fog Creek Software will be adding paid features to the suite, including developer analytics, a live catalog of sample developer apps, request for live help, and the ability to define which features the team prioritizes.
