Google has announced a new cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) named Project IDX that aims to transform the software development process using artificial intelligence.
Unveiled at the Google Cloud Next conference on Tuesday, Project IDX is a browser-based development environment built on Google Cloud, powered by Codey, a foundational AI model that is learned on code and built on PaLM 2. The goal is to provide smart coding assistance and tools to help developers build applications more efficiently.
Google built Project IDX on top of Visual Studio Code (using Code OSS), allowing it to focus on AI integrations like Codey and PaLM 2. Google’s AI programming assistant Codey enables smart code completion and chatbots to answer coding questions and contextual code recommendations.
The IDE supports popular frameworks like Angular, Flutter, React and Vue.js to start, with plans to expand the catalogue of supported languages and frameworks.
A key advantage of Project IDX is that it provides a consistent development environment that can be accessed from any device. This saves you the hassle of ensuring your development environment syncs across machines. Cloud-based IDEs also provide access to robust computing resources unavailable locally on many developer machines.
Deep integration with GitHub and Google Firebase provides robust source control, hosting and cloud capabilities right from the IDE. Workspaces offer Linux-based virtual machines and tools for tasks like testing iOS apps using macOS in the cloud.
Project IDX remains in early preview for now as Google continues development, but it represents the company’s ambitious vision for integrating AI into the coding process. Google plans to add more languages, frameworks and integrations for cloud services.
