I recently went on a weekend break to Prague and decided not to take my laptop with me. It can be a hassle taking a laptop away with you, and the point of the break was to get away from work.
Of course I still needed to be able to code if I really had to. My only other option for coding was my Android phone, not the best option. This though presented a challenge as if you’re going to code on any device you need to solve the following problems…
- Edit code.
- Connect to a server.
- Connect to and manage Git repos.
If you can do these three things you’ll be able to edit some code and fix something in an emergency.
To cut a long story short I did some research and it turns out there are a few tools available that will get you coding on your Android. My favourites are…
DroidEdit
This is a simple text editor with syntax highlighting. It can edit files locally, on your Dropbox and other cloud storage providers. You can also work directly with Git repos, but the functionality isn’t great.
JuiceSSH
Is an SSH Client that will allow you to connect to a remote server. You will need your SSH keys, but there is the option to generate new ones. This is particularly useful when working with Git.
MGit
Is a Git management tool like SourceTree that will allow you to clone repos to your Android and manage them. I personally prefer using Git with a CLI but MGit has all the things you need, pull, push, checkout, etc…
The only tool that I haven’t looked into yet is an (S)FTP client for Android. I don’t regard this an urgent need though.
Anyway, with the above tools you’ll be able to get coding on your Android phone. I’m currently managing this GitHub Pages blog with it perfectly fine.