Ruby on Rails

[fuzzylizard]

How about Ruby on Rails support along with php and everything else you offer?

[jive]

I second that notion.

[mellowj]

just read about ruby and it sounds amazing, would love to try it

[MachineDog]

I've been too busy but, I'd like to learn Perl mainly so I can make IRC bots.

[mellowj]

yeah perl is pretty useful to know since its used a fair bit in linux and the like but to be honest i think there are far greater languages to spend your time learning but its all down to preferences there are a huge number of different programming languages out at the moment and even more tools and stuff to learn. Ruby on rails is a really nice language i recommend anyone who is pretty new to programming to try learning it because it is shockingly simple and very powerful, however it does have its disadvantages are probably gonna mean that i will avoid learning instead ive been looking into creating AJAX applications which are really cool but i don't think my javascript skills are upto scratch enough to begin working on something like that yet

[MachineDog]

JavaScript and Java are two differant things. Java is a full blown programming language, AJAX I would guess are done in Java. Which is more like a C. JavaScript is for small client-side scripts. I'd like to learn JavaScript better though so I can create client-server side web apps. Such as small text based games.

[mellowj]

Thats kinda what an AJAX system does. Google maps is a great example of the power of AJAX as when you move the map around rather then have to continue reloading the page the new data requests are sent via javascript to the web server then sent back and displayed. It works very simply however, the downside is that error checking and performance are very difficult to implement.

We can add Ruby on Rails to Dedicated servers, I have one with it but right now it just conflicts with Cpanel/WHM in several ways that don't make it really a good choice for a shared environment, as well as the fast CGI modules and no graphical interfact to start new projects on. Hopefully Cpanel/WHM will add it or third party support will emerge, until then a dedicated servers is the best route.

Btw, Ruby on Rails is amazing for what you can put together in a short time.

[drueter]

It has been a little while since the last post requesting Ruby on Rails support on shared hosts. Any chance that it will be happening in the near future??

Originally Posted by drueter

It has been a little while since the last post requesting Ruby on Rails support on shared hosts. Any chance that it will be happening in the near future??

No not currently, if Cpanel adds it we will of course but otherwise there are no plans too. It isn't a stable technology yet in terms of a production environment, basically meaning that its lacking a way to plug it into Apache nicely and rails apps are hard to setup without shell. We can install it on a dedicated box of course.

Ruby on Rails is not a language - Ruby is a language, Rails is a framework. It's really not a good idea to host Rails next to cPanel and PHP, because first of all, Rails is really optimized for the included webserver for one, but also, it pretty much requires ssh. Then, of course, Rails requires you to know Ruby, which most people don't. All this is not to mention the fact that simpler is always better for a server with multiple vhosts, especially one that runs a lot of processes, which may or may not include the necessary libraries today.

The are similar RAD frameworks for Python (like Turbogear, Django, or Twisted), PHP (like Cake or BinaryCloud), and even Perl (like Mason). Rails is all the rage these days, and I'd love to play with it on a public site, but honestly, there are smarter choices for a hosting company running a business. As a general rule for web frameworks, never build on something that you cannot maintain yourself.

Just a couple pennies from a new Hostgatorite...

[ascheinberg]

Originally Posted by mellowj

instead ive been looking into creating AJAX applications which are really cool but i don't think my javascript skills are upto scratch enough to begin working on something like that yet

Rails may be great at simple AJAX, but AJAX itself is really not all that hard. The basic concept is that you can use some javascript pages to load pages asynchronously (Async is the A in AJAX). So you have javascript load a page in the background, then return the results. At that point, you can use the DOM to change the page. So it involves using the javascript function getElementById().

If you want to use AJAX, include this in your page header:

<script type="text/javascript">
var xmlhttp=false;
/*@cc_on @*/
/*@if (@_jscript_version >= 5)
 try {
  xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
 } catch (e) {
  try {
   xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  } catch (E) {
   xmlhttp = false;
  }
 }
@end @*/
if (!xmlhttp && typeof XMLHttpRequest!='undefined') {
    xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
}    
</script>

Don't worry about what it does, but know this: it checks for certain types of functions, and then establishes the ability for an asynchronous session.

Then you need a function, like maybe this:

function ajaxMe() { 
    var serverfile ="file.txt"; //file to get
    xmlhttp.open("GET",myfile,true); //open the pipe, get the file
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
        if (xmlhttp.readyState==4) {
            var mydiv = document.getElementById('divToUpdate');
            mydiv.innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText; //replace the div
        } 
    }
    xmlhttp.send(null)
}

So, what we've done is taken the text from a file called "file.txt" from the server, and dynamically inserted it into a page in the <div> with an id="divToUpdate" quickly and painlessly.

All you really need to do is insert a button or something with an onclick="ajaxMe()" and you're good to go - you've got AJAX running.

When you start playing with CSS styles and visibility, you can make this REALLY useful.

Adam S

The issue is what customers want. Rails is fast becoming a preferred development framework eating into PHP share. CPanel has nothing to do with this. How does PHP have anything to do with CPanel? It doesn't.

Rails is production quality and stable as of 1.0 release. Plenty of hosting companies already have put Rails on their platforms including your competition!

Already I'm disappointed that PHP 5.x isn't supported by HostGator. PHP 5.x offers 400% performance improvement and you guys are too shy to support it. I see this speed improvement on my systems at work. Nobody is going to be writing PHP 4.x code anymore - thats stupid.

I hate when companies start complaining about not supporting something because "its Cpanel's fault". You either get with the times, or get left behind.

Originally Posted by Guest

The issue is what customers want. Rails is fast becoming a preferred development framework eating into PHP share. CPanel has nothing to do with this. How does PHP have anything to do with CPanel? It doesn't.

Rails is production quality and stable as of 1.0 release. Plenty of hosting companies already have put Rails on their platforms including your competition!

Already I'm disappointed that PHP 5.x isn't supported by HostGator. PHP 5.x offers 400% performance improvement and you guys are too shy to support it. I see this speed improvement on my systems at work. Nobody is going to be writing PHP 4.x code anymore - thats stupid.

I hate when companies start complaining about not supporting something because "its Cpanel's fault". You either get with the times, or get left behind.

We run Cpanel/WHM for our customers, Cpanel is a package setup so that everything works perfectly together and they don't feel PHP5 is ready yet nor have they included it. I must agree with them from seeing a few of our customers switch, we are seeing a lot of conflicts with older scripts and general just bugs. You are welcome to get a dedicated server if you want to use these things. Its not shyness, its called protecting all our customers, only a small % are on the bleeding edge of technology, most just want dependability.

Also, RoR is not ready to go yet, its web server sucks and so far its integration with Apache is not great either. I've installed it on my personal dedicated server and it does conflict with Cpanel/WHM in some ways, nothing big but nothing ordinary customers should have to deal with.

I also would like to request ruby support, I am very interested to use it on an upcoming project.

[PietH]

Same here!

And while we're at it, what about subversion ?

[mika76]

Hell yeah! I'd love subversion too! Any chance?

[feios]

Ruby support will be great... please add support for Ruby on our Hosting Plans!!!!!!!!!!

[comomolo]

It amazes me reading that RoR is not ready to go yet. So all the servers supporting it out there or Apple including it in next Mac OSX release are just amateurs?

[slapshotw]

It amazes me that you have that attitude in your post without doing a search first. Rails and SVN are installed and working on the servers.

[Guerrero]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

It amazes me that you have that attitude in your post without doing a search first. Rails and SVN are installed and working on the servers.

please clarify the svn/subversion support.
Can I host my repos? or only install external repos as in the case of RoR?

[slapshotw]

As far as I know, you can't currently use the HG svn repos as an external repo to your own files and projects. Unfortunately, it seems to exist for the sole purpose of supporting RoR.

[evan@trnsfr]

RubyonRails... great! But it's only half the battle:

To quote Agile Web Development with Rails (the Ruby-Rails bible): "CGI is
definitely not the place you want to be. [...] Thankfully, Apache is also
capable of running FastCGI."

CGI is so inefficient, HostGator is just bogging down it's server loads. May I suggest
either (1) FastCGI or (2) Mongrel Clusters via Apache deferral (even betta!)