Dev environments as code

The article discusses the concept of "Dev environments as code," which involves automating and standardizing developer environment setups to save time and energy. It highlights that while automated deployments have become commonplace in software development, dev environments are often still configured manually, leading to lengthy onboarding processes for new team members and inconsistencies between individual workstations. The author suggests applying the "infrastructure as code" principle to dev environments by writing setup instructions in an executable format and checking them into the project's source code repository. This approach can be achieved using tools like Docker, Oomph, or Theia IDE. Automating dev environment setups ensures that everyone works on the same environment, making it easier to reproduce bugs and maintain consistency across team members.