LAMP is a term that defines an architecture based on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.
How would you call an architecture based on Linux, ??? (Webrick?Unicorn?), PostgreSQL and Ruby?
LWPR? LUPR?
This is a silly question, but I would like to know how Rubyists using Rails describe their solution, just as LAMP solution are described as LAMP. I would like a similar "official" term.
I like to refer to it simply as Ruby on Liweunpo.
But in reality, there isn't an official designation. Too many people use all sorts of variations; the toolset is much richer today than when "LAMP" was coined, so it's much easier to pick and choose technologies and people aren't really confined to one stack anymore. Even "LAMP" applications are increasingly more likely to use things like Postgres, because at the end of the day there isn't a huge difference.
LAMP usually consists of four parts:
OS: Linux
Web server: Apache with mod_php
DB: MySQL
Back end programming language: PHP
For Rubyists, I see many people use combination as below:
OS: Linux
Web server: Nginx with Unicorn (Webrick for development environment)
DB: PostgreSQL (sqlite for development env. but better have the same db as production)
Back end programming language: Ruby (on Rails)
Can't say the combination above is the majority of what people choose. So many other options are possible for each component. But that is a good starting point if you are new. You can see many tutorials with that combination.
I learned today about MEAN: MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, Node.js (respectively: database, framework, server-side framework, client-side framework and web server).
It serves as a good example to show that you can build stack names to sound nice and memorable without having to respect any convention.
Related
We have a very simple function (We look something up from a third party database and return an answer. It's literally five lines of code.) We would like to offload this task from our main server because we expect a high volume of traffic for this one function and would like to optimize it.
We are thinking about testing the promise of many cloud/PaaS providers, where they handle scaling and performance responsibilities.
We're most interested in Rails environments, but are curious to hear experiences from others about any company in the space.
Here are the PaaS companies we found that supports Rails:
1) Heroku
2) DotCloud
3) Duostack
Questions:
1) Do you know of other Rails-specific companies? Also feel free to list non-Rails companies since we're interested in following other companies in case they eventually provide Rails support.
2) How has your experience been with these companies?
Foreword and disclaimer: I work for DotCloud; so the following might be biased. You've been warned.
DotCloud could be interesting for you if you like the following features:
run something else than Ruby (what about some Django or Pylons code talking with your SQL DB? Or even some PHP blog like WordPress or Drupal, using the same user authentication database?)
experiment with databases like Redis or MongoDB, or background ruby workers, without paying for add-ons
SSH access, crontab access (without requiring an add-on)
cheaper workers (I didn't come up with this one; some of our users coming from the Heroku world told us that workers were insanely expensive there)
Duostack is indeed very nice if you want to mix specifically Rails and Node.js. I've been told that they had awesome auto-configuration facilities.
Finally, if you only plan to do Rails and nothing else, ever, you might as well stick with Heroku since they've been in that business for a while, and are probably more mature than the first two of the batch.
Shameless plug: DotCloud is offering a beta test drive; so if you want to see what it looks like, just subscribe to the beta and you will be quickly enough be able to see for yourself. Heroku has a free tier as well.
You could add EngineYard in the mix - but i'd be inclined to use Heroku as my first choice, Dotcloud second (it's a newish product, and is very good but still in development)
If you want more control over your app/servers or want to run it on any cloud or your own infrastructure without having to download/deploy anything, you can try Cloud 66 (www.cloud66.com)
Disclaimer: I work for Cloud 66
A lot has changed on the scene since this question was asked. We recently looked into these services and settled on Heroku, but even more recently decided to continue managing my own deployments directly on EC2. Here are some points not mentioned in the other answers.
Heroku
Now supports much more than just ruby
Has really great-looking support for PostgreSQL
Uses LXC for process containers, like DotCloud
DotCloud
Is now Docker, and is putting a lot of manpower into developing docker.io
Doesn't have a free tier any more
I'm not sure if DotCloud is using Docker internally or not, since the docs say explicitly it isn't production-ready yet.
Our decision to stick with plain EC2 was motivated by the fact that it's cheaper and affords a lot more flexibility. For example, we use local-only http servers behind our public server to do some of our request processing, which doesn't really fit into the PaaS models out there. We would have had to reimplement all our back-end components as redis workers, and pay for them as additional dynos. The fact that Amazon RDS now supports PostgreSQL was also a compelling factor. Incidentally, Amazon has a full-stack PaaS offering as well, Elastic Beanstalk.
Just stumbled upon the question. There are similar ones around here. The problem is also: The PaaS scene is changing very quickly. New vendors are popping in every week or so.
Nowadays OpenShift from Red Hat might also be mentioned here as a Ruby PaaS.
OFFTOPIC + shameless plug: I have compiled a list of PHP PaaS here: http://blog.fortrabbit.com/comparing-cloud-hosting-platforms/
I know there are a lot of existing questions on Django hosting etc but my question is whether there is a technical reason why RoR hosts are easier to get by than Django hosts. Is there something in the technology itself or the architecture that makes it more of a hassle for providers to host and maintain?
It's both seemingly easier to find better free hosts for RoR than for Django (10mb from alwaysdata really doesn't allow for a lot and App Engine isn't a vanilla Django) and easier to find decent RoR hosts for 2$/month packed with features than for Django.
Is the reason technical or just because of market share/timing?
Thanks,
Xiao
Let's face it, free hosts are nowhere near good, and nor are very cheap ones.
If you want a decent host, you will have to pay a decent amount.
On the other hand, rails is nearly 1 year older than django, and started to popularize way earlier than django did. Also, php being older and popularized earlier, it seems a good reason for rails to be more popular with hosts than django.
Django it is not more difficult to host than RoR.
IMHO this offering delta is there mostly because of the market share the RoR has compared to Django.
If it is true that rails is older than Django, it's also true that Python is older (and used by more people) than Ruby.
Also a technology like WSGI that makes things easier for web applications was already there when something similar came out for Ruby (Rack).
I think it's less timing and more community push, myself. There is an extremely active and vocal community behind Rails. Just go down to your local bookstore and take a look at the books there. You'll probably find 5x the amount of Rails books that you will find over Django. As it is said, the squeeky wheel gets greased. There is a strong vocal minority of Rails users, and that means that people will cater to them on shared hosts, because otherwise they'll have to listen to a lot of requests that keep asking for it.
Not to say that time-in-market doesn't have something to do with it, I just find that the community behind any given technology has a lot to do with it's level of adoption in different business models.
Also, any host that hosts Ruby apps can host just about any of the major frameworks, as long as they are Rack compatible. So for having to deal with Rails, they usually get support for Sinatra, Ramaze, etc, for free. Instead of just supporting Django.
Is it true that with passenger (mod_rails), the deployment of Rails is fairly simple? But how about how practical it is, considering it in the competitive software field? Is it true that if deploying Python or PHP framework based website, it can cost just a fraction of a Rails deployment? I am sure there will be a time when Rails deployment is very comparable to other frameworks, but I'd like to get some idea in the highly competitive software field, how competitive Rails is, compared to Python or PHP based frameworks, supporting similar concurrent user requests.
Naturally using something like PHP will require less setup, because apache/{insert_web_server_here} doesn't have to hook into a middleware just to run the application. All it needs is to load php module and it's off and running.
However, I wouldn't let that scare you away from deploying Rails applications. Passenger really makes it easy, as it literally walks you step by step via the command line, and tells you what to put in certain Apache config files etc.
Another advantage of using Passenger is that it uses REE(Ruby Enterprise Edition) in that it is significantly faster than MRI due to their enhanced garbage collection solution etc.
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I am currently trying to set up a development environment for learning Ruby. The environment will primarily be for getting to grips with the language, but I will most probably move on to development with Rails after long. With web development a target, I would like to hear about preferred web servers and databases.
I plan on setting up the environment on a virtual machine, so I'm not worried about trashing the thing. Therefore, I am open to using a Linux distribution, OSX or Windows as the operating system.
I'm moving from C#, so I'd like to be forced into the Ruby way of thinking to a certain extent. Obviously, that's easier said than done.
What OS do most Ruby developers use?
What is the easiest IDE to get to
grips with coming from a background
of using Visual Studio?
Which
database is used most within the Ruby
community?
Which database is most
likely to be supported by most web
hosts?
Which web server is the
easiest to configure? To get up and
running in the shortest amount of
time.
Hopefully I have provided all the information needed and hopefully this will aid others in setting up their own environments.
Thanks
Edit:
Thanks guys. Some really good
suggestions so far, all of which I'll
take on board. I'm currently wading
through the copious articles surrounding
initial RoR setup on Linux, as I like to
understand how things work and are
tied together. Also, because it's all
free...
I'm currently putting together a
virtual machine (so I can break stuff)
using:
Ubuntu
SQLite
No webserver, I plan on using whatever development server comes with Rails out of the box, initially
Redcar Editor
Edit 2
I have setup a couple of environments
now.
I have the ubuntu setup running in a
Virtual Machine on Windows and decided
to try decking my Mac out for ruby
development too.
Overall, I'd have to say setup for the
mac was a lot less painful than the
linux setup. On the mac I'm running
with:
SQLite that comes with OSX out of the box(!)
TextMate (trial version, but loving it)
Mongrel web server
I've progressed from learning the ways
of Ruby to writing some simple
websites with Rails and am finding
development with Rails really simple
to use. I have also set up a GIT
repository on my working directory and
am currently trying out Heroku.
Thanks for the help, everyone.
If anyone would like any more information about setting up on either environment, I'd be happy to provide more detail.
What OS do most Ruby developers use?
Mac OS for most, but any Linux distro will do (Ubuntu/Fedora etc).
What is the easiest IDE to get to grips with coming from a background of using Visual Studio?
Textmate is quite popular if you're on Mac. Netbeans and Aptana are there if you need something similar to enterprise world. Emacs/Vim is ok too.
Which database is used most within the Ruby community?
So far most Ruby / RoR guys I know use open source databases. sqlite for local development while Mysql or Postgresql for production. My advice, sqlite is easy to learn, while give a try with Mysql or Postgresql, you might not know when your clients going to ask you to develop on them. Mysql is very popular. Postgresql I think has lot more features (personal preference).
Which database is most likely to be supported by most web hosts?
Mysql is most supported by shared hosting hence the M in LAMP (Linux/Apache/Mysql/Php). But Postgresql is getting more support too. Some hosting companies even support both but Rails developers usually prefer to use VPS (slicehost.com/linode.com) and manage all these themselves. Checkout heroku.com too for deploying your Rails app without needing much knowledge in sys admin stuffs.
Which web server is the easiest to configure? To get up and running in the shortest amount of time.
Developing with Rails you'll get webrick as a development server where you can test ur app locally. But for production I prefer modrails.com where you can choose between apache/nginx. I prefer to use apache since that is what I'm used to.
You'll want to look at RVM from the start, this takes away a lot of the pain of managing Ruby versions and gems.
Judging from the laptops I saw at Railsconf last June, Rails developers are about 90% OSX, 9.9% Linux, and there's like 1 or 2 guys on Windows.
Personally I use Textmate when I'm at home on OSX and gedit and redcar when I'm at work on Ubuntu Linux. I use sqlite for development mainly with mysql in production, but mongodb seems to be the new hotness, but I haven't done much more than some sample apps with it so I can learn it.
Virtual hosting providers will probably give you a choice of whatever database you want. Heroku is awesome and is used for deploying Rails applications via git, and uses postgres but has plugins to use mongodb if you want to go that way.
For what the community at large is doing, check out Thoughbot's survey results at: http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/308239139/2009-ruby-survey-results
You might have a look at the Bitnami installer, which claims to create a full Ruby/Rails stack. There's also a VM version, so in theory you could just grab their VM and start coding your app. (YMMV -- personally I haven't tried it).
OS
Most ruby developers seem to gravitate towards Macs for some reason, with a few linux and some windows devs. That said, I use windows for all my ruby work and haven't really run into any huge roadblocks. Your safest option will probably be a Mac, if you want to be on the same side as most of the community.
IDE
You don't really need a full-blown IDE for ruby, as you would for something like C#. Most mac users seem to use textmate. I personally use redcar. It's not fully completed yet, but it can be used on Windows, Linux or Mac, and I've yet to run into a feature I need that isn't provided. It is written in ruby, can be extended through plugins, and supports textmate themes and snippets. To supplement redcar, I've actually written a shell in ruby for my own use. It's still in alpha stage, but I've got features like grep and ls working, and capabilities for working with and manipulating files. You can extend it with ruby, and actually use any ruby command inside the shell. It's hosted here, and is currently for use on windows. After I get some more features in, I might start looking at Mac or Linux ports.
Database
Open source options like sqlite and mysql are used widely. I don't have enough experience on them to really comment on the differences. For what it's worth, Heroku (which is great for hosting) uses Postgresql.
Server
You should use a lightweight server like Thin for development, to test your app. For production, have a look at modrails.com (as a few other answers have suggested).
Good luck with whatever you choose.
OS
80-20 Mac-Linux. I've seen one Windows ruby dev so far. If you use and debian (ubuntu is a debian), take a look at rvm, because debian cripples rubygems.
IDE
You can code ruby without an IDE, grab an editor of your choice. We've got emacs, vim, textmate, gedit here. If you really want an IDE, get rubymine.
Depends on how good your shell-fu is ;-)
DB
sqlite >:)
Server
For development, rails server should do. For production, my recommendation is unicorn, paired with nginx.
Further stuff:
http://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koans
And go for rails 3 beta.
Tutorials
ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart
Ruby community
ruby-lang.org/en/community/
I think Linux(Fedora) would be best for you
For data base mysql is very popular
most prefered web server
http://www.modrails.com/
http://github.com/fauna/mongrel
Ruby mine is good IDE
http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/
I'd like to go into Django with Python, but it seems that some hosting companies like DreamHost, Netfirms, they both offer Ruby on Rails in the basic hosting package, but not Django. They only list Python, but not the framework. So does that mean if I use Django, I will need to look for companies that support Django, or can I simply add the Django files to my directory and it will work without using any other support?
Check out Djangofriendly.com for a list of hosts that are friendly to setting up Django (not that you can't do it with many other hosts, of course).
Personally, I have a few Django apps hosted on Webfaction and they are absolutely amazing.
Dreamhost does support Django!
And here's a list of hosting companies which support Django, and as you see, most major companies support it.
It would be harder in the sense that the number of choices you have will be smaller. But the reality is that you need only one host anyway.
I highly recommend Webfaction as my experience with them has been very good. They support Django out of the box with very little configuration necessary on your side.
Check these lists for Django hosts:
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/DjangoFriendlyWebHosts
http://djangohosting.org/
Be aware that most shared hosting packages will not be suitable for Django, because of the need to restart the server whenever you make changes to python code - most don't allow this. Webfaction is a notable exception - I am using them for several Django projects, and would second the recommendations above. You barely notice it's a shared host.
But you might want to consider virtualized hosting. I also have some projects hosted at Slicehost. The prices are comparable to a shared host and you have complete control over your server. This also means, of course, that setting things up is less one-click, although they provide great step-by-step tutorials.
Maybe you could look into Googles app engine if you want to do python web development. They can handle all the hosting for you.
Yes!
The standard hosting packages are either Windows/ISS or Linux/php/perl/Mysql.
There are a few specialist Django/python hosting packages, but, your best bet is
to get a Linux VPS (Virtual Private Server) package which gives you root access.
You can then install exactly what you require. Prices start at less $10 a month
for a basic low bandwith not much disk space package.
It depends on compared to what. If it is compared to Rails, it will be harder just because of the buzz around Rails and it is quite likely a "basic" package would include Rails before Django, so if that cost factor matters, be aware of it, but there is pleanty of competition for Django hosting, so the lack of hosting isn't a reason to avoid it.
PHP is much more popular to host at the basic level, if hosting drives the technology decision.