I'm curious what the best approach is for web development. I want to make a web program but I need to be able to switch from my desktop and laptop at any given time. What's the best approach to that?

(Bonus points for no virtualization as my laptop cannot handle virtualization.)

Wouldn't SSH and emacs work? Though I wouldn't recommend sshing over wifi from your laptop.

While I agree that it would work in the BLANDEST SENSE POSSIBLE, that means I have to have a nth device that I can just rely on always being online.
I do not have this device yet. I want to develop locally BEFORE I invest money into hardware or a datacenter for it. Honestly, this doesn't even constitute as "portable" in the software realm sense, because it's still fixed to one device.

In that case, a thumb drive with all the files should work, no?

No, because the configuration files, and the fact that most server software isn't portable. I'm looking for portable server software.

Write a batch file to copy all of the configuration files from the flash drive to their respective locations

The software's also not always in the same place, so this is impractical.
Fucking hate server software, honestly.

Oh, also, this has the unfortunate side effect of making it difficult to have multiple projects simultaneously.

I don't know what to tell you other than setting up a host from home

this sounds like a case where you actually do want docker
a lot of the time, it always seems like more effort than I'd bother with
but a completely repeatable environment between machines is 100% what you need
although I guess it does require virtualization, so you might be SOL

have you considered just doing all the work on a cheapo $2/mo VPS? (you can probably get a better deal than that too)

I could also just use the Oracle VMs, those are free. The problem with literally any of the nth machine solutions, ignoring the obvious problems of rent or energy bill because I've got no real source of income, is the difficulty of transferring files. Editing files over SSH or Remote Desktop is a fucking BITCH that I will not deal with after having been able to do everything else on my home machine, but so is transferring over FTP any time I want to update the test.
(And again, that's not portable in the software sense.)

In short, I'm a bit too entitled for my own budget. It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Man, why the fuck has no one come up with a DOSBox-X like solution to emulating later hardware? Surely it's not that hard to emulate, like... a singular core of a Core 2 Duo.

ultimately, you have a lot of conflicting requirements
doing everything on the laptop is probably the real answer if you need to work on it while on the go, and you can push it to your desktop every once in a while over git just for backup reasons

like, when I'm at home, I will just VNC and/or SSH into my desktop from my laptop and vice-versa so I don't need to get up, and it's generally fairly fast and seamless over a local connection

Would you be returning to your desktop every day?

>I want to make a web program but I need to be able to switch from my desktop and laptop at any given time. What's the best approach to that?

The right way to do it is to use a version control system (git). It looks hard, but actually you'll only need to learn basic commands for your goals. Set up a master branch of development and sync with it on both of your devices.

For portable server software the right way to do it is docker, yeah. Just learn bare minimum, ask chatgpt to generate you a Dockerfile or look at github for projects with a similar stack, they'll most likely have a Dockerfile that you can learn from.

Docker does not require virtualization btw, at least on Linux. You're using Linux, don't you?

>>13
Perhaps, but I don't think I have a set of conflicting requirements here. Any other project of mine literally follows the same layout: Portable prerequisite programs(IE: compilers, emulators, Git,) stuck on a virtual hard drive, and a bunch of my scripts. Whether it be BASIC, C/C++, assembly, or Love2D, that's how it goes.
The fact I cannot seem to make a web version of my VHDs is annoying as shit.

>>14
Almost every day, EXCEPT right now because I'm a bit over 400 miles from my desktop.

>>15
I do not have good experiences with synchronizing Git, but I do already use it to some extent. I just like local copies more.

>>16 >>17
>ChatGPT
I'm not a vibe coder. If I'm going to do something I'm gonna try to do it right. I've asked ChatGPT TWICE for assistance with JS and honestly, my experience went poorly, so I don't want to try that again.
Anyways, I might use Docker once my laptop gets changed out for something that SUPPORTS VIRTUALIZATION.
I actually hate Linux and would only ever use it as server software.

>I just like local copies more.

No remote server is required, it's possible to set up a repository on a USB stick or SD card

>I actually hate Linux and would only ever use it as server software.

Welp, enjoy your windows webdev experience without docker

>>19
Thanks.
I wish I weren't here, DOS is more enjoyable as a development platform.

The absolute worst part about Apache is that the thing I desperately desired last night, because it makes my (finally found) portable Apache install USEFUL,) CGIMapExtension, is fucking NETWARE ONLY.
Why? Even Linux could potentially use that, and it's EXCLUSIVE TO AN OS THAT GOT DISCONTINUED IN 2009!?
I have so many problems with using shebang lines and registries to determine what interpreters should be used.

By the ways for clarification since I keep doing this, when I say Apache, I mean httpd. I probably don't need to clarify that, but I can try anyways.

if you don't want to use git, use fossil

>>18
> I do not have good experiences with synchronizing Git, but I do already use it to some extent. I just like local copies more.

what does this mean lol? with git you have your local copies but you can push/pull changes between them (generally using a git server). you can even work on different branches. It's not like using Google Docs or something and git != github. listen to >>19 he understands the assignment

>if you don't want to use git, use fossil
But I already use Git.
>what does this mean lol?
Pushing changes to a Git server has historically not gone well to me. That's what I mean by "synchronization." I just use local repositories as a result, even if I am forced to takeown /f "%~d0\*" /r every time I want to switch computers.