I think a lot of times the reason local dev environments are fragile isn't because they're local, it's because they are an afterthought and not a lot of effort goes into making them good and stable:
(1) On a team of developers, there usually isn't someone who is designated to be responsible for designing and maintaining a good dev environment.
(2) Many devs don't have the expertise to do it. Build tools, operating systems, dependencies, and configuration management are a related but different skillset than coding.
(3) Many devs don't want to work on it because they enjoy coding more. Just because you enjoy one type of work doesn't mean you enjoy the related work. (This also applies to writing documentation.)
(4) Fixing / improving the dev environment is not rewarded. You need to get X feature done by Y date, and fixing the dev environment may slow you down. It provides a long-term benefit, but not one that is easily measurable, plus that benefit is off the radar when evaluating the contributions of someone whose primary role is coding.
With this cloud environment, they've separated those responsibilities out and given them to a specialized team dedicated to it. IMHO, some of the success is probably due to the organizational structure, not just the technical differences.
(1) On a team of developers, there usually isn't someone who is designated to be responsible for designing and maintaining a good dev environment.
(2) Many devs don't have the expertise to do it. Build tools, operating systems, dependencies, and configuration management are a related but different skillset than coding.
(3) Many devs don't want to work on it because they enjoy coding more. Just because you enjoy one type of work doesn't mean you enjoy the related work. (This also applies to writing documentation.)
(4) Fixing / improving the dev environment is not rewarded. You need to get X feature done by Y date, and fixing the dev environment may slow you down. It provides a long-term benefit, but not one that is easily measurable, plus that benefit is off the radar when evaluating the contributions of someone whose primary role is coding.
With this cloud environment, they've separated those responsibilities out and given them to a specialized team dedicated to it. IMHO, some of the success is probably due to the organizational structure, not just the technical differences.