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"Relative to other programming languages, Ruby and the Rails framework can be particularly onerous just to install and configure." WTF are they talking about?

• bayareaguy 19y ago
  You know, stuff like: powerbook.local 102> sudo port install rubygems Password: Error: Port rubygems not found
  • jey 19y ago
    Fixed. The port was actually "rb-rubygems", not "rubygems". I'm no rails fanboy by far, but it's unfair to claim that rails is a hard environment to use when in reality rails goes out of its way to make RoR development dead simple. </nitpick>
    • bayareaguy 19y ago
      I'm no ruby developer so I decided to push your example a little further just to see how trivial it really is. Unfortunately the next instruction you offer didn't work either: powerbook.local 105> sudo gem install rails Password: Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org ERROR: While executing gem ... (Gem::GemNotFoundException) Could not find rails (> 0) in any repository A little googling reveals that at least on OSX, you need to do this: powerbook.local 106> sudo gem update --system Password: Updating RubyGems... and after that, then you can powerbook.local 107> sudo gem install rails [...] powerbook.local 108> rails myproject powerbook.local 109> cd myproject [...] But then the next command you wrote blows up again: powerbook.local 110> ./script/server Cannot find gem for Rails =1.2.6.0: Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.6 rails', or change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.
      • jules 19y ago
        That's strange given that DHH himself uses OS X. I've had no problems at all installing Rails on Linux and Windows.
        • bayareaguy 19y ago
          Who knows? Perhaps DHH doesn't follow jey's instructions to install ruby and start a rails project? In any event web services like Heroku make it a moot point. I've yet to try it out but I can easily see the attraction when a trivial google search of "ruby install error" returns 100,000 hits.
          • emmett 19y ago
            Results 1 - 10 of about 153,000 for ruby install error. (0.23 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 166,000 for python install error. (0.26 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 264,000 for java install error. (0.22 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 145,000 for gcc install error. (0.25 seconds) This metric seems flawed.
            • deleted 19y ago
              [deleted]
            • bayareaguy 19y ago
              I'm not claiming other languages are easier to install. I'm saying there is value in offering development tools over the web in a way that eliminates any need for installation.
• mechanical_fish 19y ago
  Congratulations, you have built an app with one user! Now, if you want more users, and your home machine has a static IP, and port 80 is open, no problem. Except for the part where you will live in terror of any security holes. Oh, and the part where you've only got one server -- if this is your production server, where do you do your development? And then there's the part where you have to set up an init task to launch your server when the computer reboots. And the backups, of course. Now show me how to give three remote collaborators secure access to your app's source code, but no access to anything else. The default Rails install workflow is really nice, don't get me wrong. And Capistrano is great, and Slicehost is pretty easy to work with. But for a quick-and-dirty Rails demo, particularly in a teaching environment, Heroku appears to kick serious ass.
  • jey 19y ago
    Yes, servers should be maintained by people who know what they're doing. This means you need to hire a third party (e.g. Engine Yard) or learn how to admin a server. I'm not knocking Heroku -- you're right, it definitely looks like it'd be great for people just getting into web development or programming in general. I bet that most people who get into programming these days start off thinking "I want to make a website", and tools like this cater to that crowd.
  • geebee 19y ago
    You've given some good reasons for why it's complicated to install and configure a web framework. But the claim here is that ruby and rails are difficult relative to other programming languages. Having installed and configured other frameworks for dev work, I'd say that rails is exceptionally easy, but I can't really speak to the challenges at the production level. For that, I use Joyent, which has been fairly easy as well. None of this is meant to knock Heroku.
• joshwa 19y ago
  download locomotive or download instantrails
• tlrobinson 19y ago
  That's great for development, but not for production. Deploying with Apache, etc is still a pain in the ass, as far as I can tell.