As a newbie to programming the process of ruby on rails as a framework is very encouraging. Your hosting approach is complimentary. Thumbs Up!
Chris Schmitt
· 2 years ago
Looks really great guys. Setting up a new hosted app is always a pain, especially if you just want to do something quick. It looks like you've made it dead simple. Can't wait to try it out. I also think this will be a really good teaching tool.
Ethan
· 2 years ago
This product is a great idea. It would be really useful if you want to share something with a small set of people. It greatly lowers t he barrier between an idea and execution. If you wanted to set up a demo version of an app for a client for instance.
The use cased described are actually exactly things I've encountered so I'm pretty stoked about it.
Ethan
Ethan
· 2 years ago
...and it also looks like it has potential to evolve into hosting more than just demo versions and small deployments.
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
We definitely hope so.
JontheWayne
· 2 years ago
Guys, this is absolutely amazing, and the start of something huge. I think this is what Marc Andreessen calls a level 3 platform. Man, if you could assure me my app would scale, I might launch something cool on this. How much are you going to charge for hosting? Or is it just an online dev environment?
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
Once the service is robust and stable, yes, your app will definitely scale. For right now there are some limits (though they are pretty high). We will be offering pay accounts with more performance and features, but not quite yet.
drnic
· 2 years ago
I had this sort of idea once - I'm very glad that someone has done it! I look forward to playing with it.
Craig Jolicoeur
· 2 years ago
Why do you feel that there is an important niche like this that needs to be filled? Have you run across requests for a tool like this anywhere.
It definitely looks like a nice app and good project you guys have done, but it seems to me that Rails is one of the easiest development environments to get started with; and most rails developers actually like fully controlling their dev environment, no?
Craig Jolicoeur
· 2 years ago
not trying to attack at all here, just genuinely curious
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
Yes, we have run across many many requests for a tool like this, and it seems there is a large need. Half of the comments on this thread, for example, are evidence of it.
Sure some developers like controlling their dev environment - I know we do. But we also recognize that there is a cost to that. Rails is about convention over configuration in your code, so by default you don't have to do anything, and everything just works. We think the hosting/deployment process should be the same way. Of course our solution isn't going to work for everyone, but we want to have solid default conventions so you can just get up and running in one click. We also think there are a lot of benefits to be had by having the editor and the running application integrated tightly together on the same machine. More about this in a later post...
Sharon Rosner
· 2 years ago
Looks beautiful! congrats...
Daniel Fischer
· 2 years ago
This is really interesting, I've never seen anything like this around; yet this still questions my mind entirely. What's the point bes ides playing around a little bit?
heri
· 2 years ago
i signed up but the questions are: how much does it cost? do you have a control panel and screenshots? and do we get access to powerfu l and scalable hardware? if yes, i am quitting my host.
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
Right now, the service is free. Once we're out of private beta we'll have several pay plans, but we will always have a free plan that lets you build fully functional rails apps. Power and scale will be available from the pay plans.
No control panel is necessary, as you don't have to worry about any of the normal details of hosting. We will be adding features like custom domain names, etc.
Joseph Hsu
· 2 years ago
wow, I want to be a part of this. I change computers a lot and it would be great to have this set up.
James Urquhart
· 2 years ago
Neat! I was just thinking "Wouldn't it be cool if someone made an internet IDE?", and now i see that they have!
I wish you guy's the best of luck in getting this project off the ground and into the mainstream.
I think there is definitely some sort of niche out there for this sort of tool. The most obvious would be mobile workers like Joseph.
Good luck!
gUI
· 2 years ago
Hi !
Your idea is really great. I do totally agree with you : all projects don't need "standard" hosting. Drafts, demos... I have 1000 ideas of "3 clics a day" site (-;
Good luck !!!
Eric Anderson
· 2 years ago
Like other people on this forum this type of system is something I have always thought might be useful but some issues always came up that I am curious how you are working to solve them. Some off the top of my head are:
* Text editors are often highly optimized for productivity (think vi, emacs, ides, etc.). You have some syntax highlighting but what about other standard features in a text editor. Seems like there would be a lot of development work involved in making a compelling web-based editor. Syntax highlighting and a save button isn't going to cut it for real development * One of the nice things about rails is that it encourages a controlled method of updating. Usually you develop in a development environment. Implement extensive unit testing to ensure you don't break anything. And then when you are ready to roll a tool like capistrano to do a controlled release. This tool seems to break that model by allowing an immediate edit to a production site. This is nice for quick changes and maybe even ok for internal applications but most applications still need a little of that controlled update process that Rails encourages. So my question is will users have a "development" version of the site they can work on without affecting the production site? Perhaps even multiple development version so they can work on different branches of the same project. Will developers be able to easily run their automated testing (unit, functional and integration)? Will their be tools like Capistrano to manage the deployment from one environment to another? What about tools like SVN to branch a project for refactoring purposes and experimental features? I realized you are trying to keep it simple and start small but do you eventually plan to support a professional-style development environment? * My final question is on of code access. No matter how snazzy you make your tools some developers will want to use their old tools because that is what they are good with. With a tool like SVN this is ok because they can check the code out in their own environment and develop in their own environment and then commit back into a common repository. But this requires that your system have some tool like SVN where a developer can check out the code, make their changes using their tools and check it back in making their changes available to other developers that are using your tools. So what type of access is there to the code developed. It is easy access with a tool like SVN or a little more pain like a code export/import and merging manually?
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
Great questions - answers coming shortly in another blog post.
george
· 2 years ago
just got so lucky to get a beta login... you guys are really crazy! Respect!
Craig
· 2 years ago
So far so good. Just imported an application and having some issues but all in all things look good and I like where this is going. My first thought was in regards to the text editor. Purple on black is a little hard on the eyes. I tend to like like clean white background like most text editors. I would suggest keeping with the style used on the myapps page, this is clean and easy on the eyes. Just simple esthetics's but if i'm going to spend hours developing in here my eyes won't last as long. maybe the editor style can become customizable in the future.
I like where this is going. As the app becomes more robust, I can see this becoming a great development environement.
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
Thanks for the feedback. The overwhelming majority of people we talked to wanted light text on a dark background, as that is what they use all day, so that is what we started with. Sometime soon we will expand to have multiple themes or to allow custom CSS.
Oleg
· 2 years ago
"How many people have gotten excited about learning Rails, only to be stymied by the complexity of installing local development tools - before they even get the chance to write a "Hello, World" program?"
No guys.. What about Locomotive? It's very easy to install and its free. And its much easier to develop applications on your local machine. You have everything in your hands and a little bit more. But in WWW you have only interface, which was created with limited features. As for deployment - you are right. Sometimes it is not easy.
I think that you have nice looking project with very nice interface. But isn't it better to use your talents in creating something more usefull for people? Rails is specific and it used by developers and many of them using Vi, EMacs and textmate shortcuts. This guys prefer console (as for me i prefer UI).
ameilij
· 2 years ago
Well, all I can say if that for a newbie like me from Latin America this project is heaven sent! In our countries, even a small fee to set-up a Rails server in the US is a lot of money! This is the perfect way to test an idea before making a full commitment.
Thanks a lot guys!
chris
· 2 years ago
Not having luck so far. the generate pop up box works about 20% of the time. the other 80% it fails without message - just, nothing happens.
in editor, if select a word, and start typing, the text doesn't replace the word, instead it gets inserted wherever the cursor was before selected the word.
james@heroku
· 2 years ago
No one else has reported either of these problems, and we haven't been able to duplicate them. The generate command as well as typing to replace a selection both work for me. Please note that only Firefox 2 is currently supported.
Please send us a feedback email with a more detailed description of what you did.
All Comments
he barrier between an idea and execution. If you wanted to set up a demo version of an app for a client for instance.
The use cased described are actually exactly things I've encountered so I'm pretty stoked about it.
Ethan
It definitely looks like a nice app and good project you guys have done, but it seems to me that Rails is one of the easiest development environments to get started with; and most rails developers actually like fully controlling their dev environment, no?
Sure some developers like controlling their dev environment - I know we do. But we also recognize that there is a cost to that. Rails is about convention over configuration in your code, so by default you don't have to do anything, and everything just works. We think the hosting/deployment process should be the same way. Of course our solution isn't going to work for everyone, but we want to have solid default conventions so you can just get up and running in one click. We also think there are a lot of benefits to be had by having the editor and the running application integrated tightly together on the same machine. More about this in a later post...
ides playing around a little bit?
l and scalable hardware? if yes, i am quitting my host.
No control panel is necessary, as you don't have to worry about any of the normal details of hosting. We will be adding features like custom domain names, etc.
I wish you guy's the best of luck in getting this project off the ground and into the mainstream.
I think there is definitely some sort of niche out there for this sort of tool. The most obvious would be mobile workers like Joseph.
Good luck!
Your idea is really great. I do totally agree with you : all projects don't need "standard" hosting. Drafts, demos... I have 1000 ideas of "3 clics a day" site (-;
Good luck !!!
* Text editors are often highly optimized for productivity (think vi, emacs, ides, etc.). You have some syntax highlighting but what about other standard features in a text editor. Seems like there would be a lot of development work involved in making a compelling web-based editor. Syntax highlighting and a save button isn't going to cut it for real development
* One of the nice things about rails is that it encourages a controlled method of updating. Usually you develop in a development environment. Implement extensive unit testing to ensure you don't break anything. And then when you are ready to roll a tool like capistrano to do a controlled release. This tool seems to break that model by allowing an immediate edit to a production site. This is nice for quick changes and maybe even ok for internal applications but most applications still need a little of that controlled update process that Rails encourages. So my question is will users have a "development" version of the site they can work on without affecting the production site? Perhaps even multiple development version so they can work on different branches of the same project. Will developers be able to easily run their automated testing (unit, functional and integration)? Will their be tools like Capistrano to manage the deployment from one environment to another? What about tools like SVN to branch a project for refactoring purposes and experimental features? I realized you are trying to keep it simple and start small but do you eventually plan to support a professional-style development environment?
* My final question is on of code access. No matter how snazzy you make your tools some developers will want to use their old tools because that is what they are good with. With a tool like SVN this is ok because they can check the code out in their own environment and develop in their own environment and then commit back into a common repository. But this requires that your system have some tool like SVN where a developer can check out the code, make their changes using their tools and check it back in making their changes available to other developers that are using your tools. So what type of access is there to the code developed. It is easy access with a tool like SVN or a little more pain like a code export/import and merging manually?
Respect!
My first thought was in regards to the text editor. Purple on black is a little hard on the eyes. I tend to like like clean white background like most text editors. I would suggest keeping with the style used on the myapps page, this is clean and easy on the eyes. Just simple esthetics's but if i'm going to spend hours developing in here my eyes won't last as long. maybe the editor style can become customizable in the future.
I like where this is going. As the app becomes more robust, I can see this becoming a great development environement.
No guys.. What about Locomotive? It's very easy to install and its free. And its much easier to develop applications on your local machine. You have everything in your hands and a little bit more. But in WWW you have only interface, which was created with limited features. As for deployment - you are right. Sometimes it is not easy.
I think that you have nice looking project with very nice interface. But isn't it better to use your talents in creating something more usefull for people? Rails is specific and it used by developers and many of them using Vi, EMacs and textmate shortcuts. This guys prefer console (as for me i prefer UI).
Thanks a lot guys!
the generate pop up box works about 20% of the time.
the other 80% it fails without message - just, nothing happens.
in editor, if select a word, and start typing, the text doesn't replace the word, instead it gets inserted wherever the cursor was before selected the word.
Please send us a feedback email with a more detailed description of what you did.