4 ms·

I felt bad about a plug for my book but felt that it was justified given that it has taken every night/weekend for over a year :) I've tried to write a book th

by sriramk 16y ago

I felt bad about a plug for my book but felt that it was justified given that it has taken every night/weekend for over a year :) I've tried to write a book that I would like to read. This means humor (find all the hidden Trek, BSG references), deep technical under-the-hood stuff and lots of code. And in specific, code written in a non-Microsoft stack. All the C# code samples are easily translatable and there's an entire chapter on crypto stuff written purely in Python. Do let me know what you guys think.

andywood 16y ago
Congratulations on finishing your book. I'm curious, how does support for non-.NET/non-Microsoft stack on Azure work? Do you get to install whatever you want in your Azure VM? Is it easy/hard? I've done a couple of small projects in Azure, and didn't realize this was possible.
- sriramk 16y ago
  It works just like on Windows. The rule of thumb is if something can run on Windows (well, in specific Windows Server but that doesn't really matter), it'll run on Windows Azure. The book has a chapter on how to do this with PHP examples. I recently did a talk on how to do RoR on Azure http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/books_talks.html http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/books_talks.html. Folks have run Python, Erlang, Clojure, etc on Azure without any issues. The thing to watch out for is that Azure doesn't come installed with these runtimes so you need to package them with your app or install them on the fly inside your VM.
hello_moto 16y ago
Azure and its companion products look compelling. Unfortunately, I'm a cheap dude who doesn't want to spend a penny to try new shiny toys. That, and the marketing stuff in Azure website is a little bit confusing to me at first. If Azure is free in the future, and if your book is still relevant in terms of code/API and stuff, I'll buy it first. I wish you the best sir.
- ryanelkins 16y ago
  If you have a business you can sign up for Microsoft's Bizspark program (bizspark.com) and you can get access to Azure for free (not to mention all of MS's other development tools for free as well).
  - hello_moto 16y ago
    I have heard about BizSpark program offering by Microsoft, that would only be available for a maximum of 3 years if I'm not mistaken? And you have to be a startup (e.g. have a business or whatnot) right? Not just a regular person/user registering to a website and have instant access to all these goodies.
    - ryanelkins 16y ago
      Yes it's available until your business has been around for 3 years or has >$1mm in revenue. You are supposed to be a business although verifying that is done more or less in good faith. You are required to have a URL and an email at that URL. You don't have to be using the MS stack though. If I remember correctly, there are program directors, you contact one and ask them to sponsor you. They do whatever they feel they need to to verify that you're a business (our sponsor just looked at our website which had some simple info on what we were working on) and then they give you a key that you use to sign up. More info, including the sponsor we used, can be found here : http://www.47hats.com/2008/11/47hats-is-now-a-microsoft-bizspark-partner/ http://www.47hats.com/2008/11/47hats-is-now-a-microsoft-bizs...
      - jf 16y ago
        HN readers who want to get their startup into BizSpark can contact me directly to get signed up without hassle.
  - evo_9 16y ago
    Nice, I hadn't heard about this yet and I'm in a start-up with just 3 people total that just formed. So yeah, this is looking like it will work for us. Hopefully vs2010 is a free download, that would save us a nice chunk of our limited startup dollars. Thanks for posting this.
joubert 16y ago
Can you run a Linux on Azure?
- sriramk 16y ago
  Nope. Windows VMs only currently. Of course, you could run Cygwin or the like on top if you want to
jschuur 16y ago
Don't feel the need to apologize. You wrote a book! A whole book! How many people can claim that? Most people can't even read a whole book, much less write one.

by sriramk 16y ago

andywood 16y ago

Congratulations on finishing your book. I'm curious, how does support for non-.NET/non-Microsoft stack on Azure work? Do you get to install whatever you want in your Azure VM? Is it easy/hard? I've done a couple of small projects in Azure, and didn't realize this was possible.

sriramk 16y ago
It works just like on Windows. The rule of thumb is if something can run on Windows (well, in specific Windows Server but that doesn't really matter), it'll run on Windows Azure. The book has a chapter on how to do this with PHP examples. I recently did a talk on how to do RoR on Azure http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/books_talks.html http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/books_talks.html. Folks have run Python, Erlang, Clojure, etc on Azure without any issues. The thing to watch out for is that Azure doesn't come installed with these runtimes so you need to package them with your app or install them on the fly inside your VM.

hello_moto 16y ago

Azure and its companion products look compelling. Unfortunately, I'm a cheap dude who doesn't want to spend a penny to try new shiny toys. That, and the marketing stuff in Azure website is a little bit confusing to me at first. If Azure is free in the future, and if your book is still relevant in terms of code/API and stuff, I'll buy it first. I wish you the best sir.

ryanelkins 16y ago
If you have a business you can sign up for Microsoft's Bizspark program (bizspark.com) and you can get access to Azure for free (not to mention all of MS's other development tools for free as well).
- hello_moto 16y ago
  I have heard about BizSpark program offering by Microsoft, that would only be available for a maximum of 3 years if I'm not mistaken? And you have to be a startup (e.g. have a business or whatnot) right? Not just a regular person/user registering to a website and have instant access to all these goodies.
  - ryanelkins 16y ago
    Yes it's available until your business has been around for 3 years or has >$1mm in revenue. You are supposed to be a business although verifying that is done more or less in good faith. You are required to have a URL and an email at that URL. You don't have to be using the MS stack though. If I remember correctly, there are program directors, you contact one and ask them to sponsor you. They do whatever they feel they need to to verify that you're a business (our sponsor just looked at our website which had some simple info on what we were working on) and then they give you a key that you use to sign up. More info, including the sponsor we used, can be found here : http://www.47hats.com/2008/11/47hats-is-now-a-microsoft-bizspark-partner/ http://www.47hats.com/2008/11/47hats-is-now-a-microsoft-bizs...
    - jf 16y ago
      HN readers who want to get their startup into BizSpark can contact me directly to get signed up without hassle.
- evo_9 16y ago
  Nice, I hadn't heard about this yet and I'm in a start-up with just 3 people total that just formed. So yeah, this is looking like it will work for us. Hopefully vs2010 is a free download, that would save us a nice chunk of our limited startup dollars. Thanks for posting this.

joubert 16y ago

Can you run a Linux on Azure?

sriramk 16y ago
Nope. Windows VMs only currently. Of course, you could run Cygwin or the like on top if you want to

jschuur 16y ago

Don't feel the need to apologize. You wrote a book! A whole book! How many people can claim that? Most people can't even read a whole book, much less write one.