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I am a self taught programmer currently working as a programmer analyst. Most of my work is in .Net and Python and is all desktop based.

I would like to start learning how to develop web applications in my spare time in order to increase my development expertise, but I am concerned about installing web servers, etc on my personal computer and I shouldn't on my work computer either.

I am wondering if it is possible to sign up with one of the big cloud service providers like Amazon or Rackspace to setup a development environment at low cost. I don't intend to make anything publicly available on the web for production purposes. This would only be an environment where I can play around with different technologies through trial and error.

Has anyone had experience with this? I looked at AWS and with all the different services available I wasn't sure which one would be what I need. Any idea of what the cost might be for something like this?

Brian
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Action.IO is a great solution for a cloud-hosted development environment. They support Python/Django and a few other popular environments (Ruby/Rails, Node.js, Go) so it's a great place to go play around without the pain of having to set things up.

There's a full linux shell in the Web IDE, which is really fast since there is multi-region support, so you don't feel any "lag" when you're typing.

It's free during the private beta-- you can sign up for an invite on the homepage.

(Disclaimer: I help build and co-founded Action.IO)

ajhit406
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It is possible to sign into Amazon EC2 and get the Linux virtual machine there. It will have public IP, would be accessible through SSH and you could install anything you want into it. It is not very expensive, most important is to keep the traffic low and do not forget to shutdown when you are not using it. I still find this less efficient than using Eclipse sever plugin that can also automatically deploy and debug.

Audrius Meškauskas
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In response to your question: "I don't intend to make anything publicly available on the web for production purposes. This would only be an environment where I can play around with different technologies through trial and error."

Have a look at cloudshare as the solution does what you need. It lets you rapidly create and provision environments for build verification, test automation and manual testing. The solution is offered in the cloud and is self-serve. In addition to the providing the virtual environments, you get added functionality for your testing such as:

•Multi-VM disks- that can be leveraged to freeze bugs, fix them and reinsert the corrected the version into the original application

•The ability to replicate master environments to isolate and rectify defects caused by incorrect configuration

•Libraries and templates of applications for subsequent testing and reference

They have a number of plans so you can check that out depending on the amount you plan to spend.

I hope this helps

tangerine2015
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