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I'll bite: what is Heroku? I read the "polyglot programmer" link on the article. What it seemed to point at was common deployment tools between languages, bu

I'll bite: what is Heroku? I read the "polyglot programmer" link on the article. What it seemed to point at was common deployment tools between languages, but it seemed vague, and there must be more. What is it?

hp 15y ago
If you follow the "how to run it on Heroku" section in the README here: https://github.com/typesafehub/webwords/tree/heroku-devcenter/ https://github.com/typesafehub/webwords/tree/heroku-devcente... then you would get something like this running app here: http://webwords.herokuapp.com/ http://webwords.herokuapp.com/ That's pretty much what it does ;-) Some people call this a "Platform-as-a-Service" or PaaS.
matan_a 15y ago
In the simplest simplest terms, it's hosting for your app. But you get a lot of bonuses like add-on services, great deployment and app management, and easy scaling (assuming your app is built to support that). Since their new infrastructure upgrade, it seems it's easier for them to support more and more language stacks. There also seems to be quite a bit of add-ons you can use.
kalid 15y ago
Think Google App Engine with more languages, with real database access (bring your own db if you want, or they can host it), dozens of add-ins, and a sane pricing model.
- jshen 15y ago
  "sane pricing model" by sane you mean really expensive for hobby projects. I keep thinking this will be a problem in the long run, disruptive technologies tend to be bottom up. I can't host a message board on heroku because it's way too expensive.
  - kalid 15y ago
    Yeah, I don't consider Heroku or the platform-as-a-service providers good for hobby projects, esp. something like a forum or blog where you can just get a cheap VPS somewhere. The sweet spot is having very reasonable billing like $15/month for a 20GB database (5MB free) and $35/month for a 2 dedicated workers (or free for 1 which needs to be spun up and is ~10 seconds for the first request). My current use case is projects which could become small income earners, where ~50/month to experiment is dirt cheap if it saves me hours of setup time.
    - jshen 15y ago
      you know, I hadn't evaluated it since it was a pure ruby service. It's a bit different with a jvm language where you can get away with 1 worker (threaded request handling) and the db upgrade. $15/month would likely be sufficient for a forum. I'll give it a try and see how it goes :) I wish there were something between the $15 and $200 db offerings.
      - kalid 15y ago
        Yep, it's definitely a steep jump from 20GB shared to dedicated. At that point it might be better to move onto your own hardware (if I fill up 20GB database then I'm doing something right).
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelfairley 15y ago
    I've had no problem running my hobby on projects on Heroku for free. What about it has been prohibitively expensive for you?

hp 15y ago

If you follow the "how to run it on Heroku" section in the README here: https://github.com/typesafehub/webwords/tree/heroku-devcenter/ https://github.com/typesafehub/webwords/tree/heroku-devcente... then you would get something like this running app here: http://webwords.herokuapp.com/ http://webwords.herokuapp.com/ That's pretty much what it does ;-) Some people call this a "Platform-as-a-Service" or PaaS.

matan_a 15y ago

In the simplest simplest terms, it's hosting for your app. But you get a lot of bonuses like add-on services, great deployment and app management, and easy scaling (assuming your app is built to support that). Since their new infrastructure upgrade, it seems it's easier for them to support more and more language stacks. There also seems to be quite a bit of add-ons you can use.

kalid 15y ago

Think Google App Engine with more languages, with real database access (bring your own db if you want, or they can host it), dozens of add-ins, and a sane pricing model.

jshen 15y ago
"sane pricing model" by sane you mean really expensive for hobby projects. I keep thinking this will be a problem in the long run, disruptive technologies tend to be bottom up. I can't host a message board on heroku because it's way too expensive.
- kalid 15y ago
  Yeah, I don't consider Heroku or the platform-as-a-service providers good for hobby projects, esp. something like a forum or blog where you can just get a cheap VPS somewhere. The sweet spot is having very reasonable billing like $15/month for a 20GB database (5MB free) and $35/month for a 2 dedicated workers (or free for 1 which needs to be spun up and is ~10 seconds for the first request). My current use case is projects which could become small income earners, where ~50/month to experiment is dirt cheap if it saves me hours of setup time.
  - jshen 15y ago
    you know, I hadn't evaluated it since it was a pure ruby service. It's a bit different with a jvm language where you can get away with 1 worker (threaded request handling) and the db upgrade. $15/month would likely be sufficient for a forum. I'll give it a try and see how it goes :) I wish there were something between the $15 and $200 db offerings.
    - kalid 15y ago
      Yep, it's definitely a steep jump from 20GB shared to dedicated. At that point it might be better to move onto your own hardware (if I fill up 20GB database then I'm doing something right).
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelfairley 15y ago
  I've had no problem running my hobby on projects on Heroku for free. What about it has been prohibitively expensive for you?