Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-17 Thread William Ross

On 16 Jul 2008, at 14:38, Chet Farmer wrote:


On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Scott Likens wrote:


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with  
mod_proxy was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


snip
Yes.  And, frankly, Ruby + gems on most Linux distros is in such a  
state that I end up maintaining my own Ruby install from source.   
Given the pain of the recent security holes (for example), I find  
that this is actually driving me to think I should can it and go  
for the same suite of PHP apps as everyone else.


I will agree with that, as Debian Etch currently has Ruby 1.8.4(2?  
i forget) with Rubygems 0.92.  However is that Ruby's problem? or  
the Linux distribution you chose?


It's definitely Ruby's problem if PHP, Perl, Python, etc., are all  
running fine out of the box.


I'd just like to put in a vote for not Ruby's problem here. I've never  
had any trouble deploying rails applications. I used to be a mod_perl  
hacker and that was much, much harder to set up and keep going.


The only difference, in my view, is that Rails isn't a commodity  
solution yet. You can't easily buy some Rails and you don't get an  
option on the Ubuntu disc to install a good starting Rails setup. A  
Rails app needs a port, I suppose, so you can't really run one unless  
you have your own box and it's really not something you should bother  
with if you just want your blog to be fashionably served.


If you have some reason to want Apache as your front end, you have to  
know how to proxy to another port. The documentation for that is here:


http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy.html

and includes straightforward cut and paste configuration along with  
some very useful warnings. I don't know anything about mod_rails, but  
I suspect that unless you want to get fancy with the apache lifecycle,  
you don't need that much integration. Nginx is a much better front end  
anyway: fast and simple. There's an excellent cargo config here:


http://brainspl.at/articles/2006/09/12/new-nginx-conf-with-rails-caching

and some thorough benchmarking here:

http://blog.kovyrin.net/2006/08/28/ruby-performance-results/

I've found it perfectly straightforward to set up typo (or radiant, or  
mephisto: I have sites running on each) using mongrel_cluster,  
capistrano and an nginx front end. The only things I had to compile  
were nginx and sphinx. Everything else is apt-gettable (and I think  
now nginx is too). I use three application servers and one database  
server and deliver over 100,000 pages a day with typically about a  
quarter load. It scales well enough for me and it's over two years  
since the last boot. I certainly couldn't say that when I was  
desperately propping up 100MB apache processes.


Here, you're defaulting back to a knee-jerk defense of what is  
clearly your pet language. That has no place here. Compared to LAMP- 
stack stuff, RoR applications are much harder to set up and deploy.  
They require a totally different approach, and that approach is very  
poorly documented. This isn't a controversial statement.



The documentation is fine. The only problem is that there is no single  
orthodox solution. I see that as a strength, but it does mean that  
some expertise is required to choose your recipe. You (Chet) are right  
in the sense that for the beginner, a working typo blog is probably  
not as easy to get to as a working php-based blog. For anyone who  
knows what they're doing there's really no difference and the rails  
model is much easier to maintain.


Most of this is general to rails so it's also worth mentioning that  
Frédéric is very diligent and responsive and the software is good. He  
deserves more appreciation, i think.


best,

will












Here, you're defaulting back to a knee-jerk defense of what is  
clearly your pet language. That has no place here. Compared to LAMP- 
stack stuff, RoR applications are much harder to set up and deploy.  
They require a totally different approach, and that approach is very  
poorly documented. This isn't a controversial statement.





---
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(Animals as Friends and How to Keep Them, by Shaw  Fisher, Dent 1939)

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-17 Thread de Villamil Frédéric
The documentation is fine. The only problem is that there is no  
single orthodox solution. I see that as a strength, but it does mean  
that some expertise is required to choose your recipe. You (Chet)  
are right in the sense that for the beginner, a working typo blog is  
probably not as easy to get to as a working php-based blog. For  
anyone who knows what they're doing there's really no difference and  
the rails model is much easier to maintain.


Most of this is general to rails so it's also worth mentioning that  
Frédéric is very diligent and responsive and the software is good.  
He deserves more appreciation, i think.



Regarding the dcumentation, I've started to refactor the one we have  
and published some. I'm taking the doc back on the redmin, and will  
move *.typosphere.org on it but the blog.


If someone here have the time to proofread this :
http://redmine.typosphere.org/wiki/typo/Before_Installing_Typo
http://redmine.typosphere.org/wiki/typo/Install_Typo_with_Typo_installer
http://redmine.typosphere.org/wiki/typo/Install_Typo_from_the_gem
http://redmine.typosphere.org/wiki/typo/Secure_Typo_admin_with_HTTPS

I will add docs on deploying Typo under various things tonight :
– Apache + mod_rails
– Apache + fastcgi
– Apache + mongrel
– Nginx + Thin
– Nginx + Fastcgi
– Nginx + mongrel
– Lighttpd + fastcgi
– Lighttpd + Thin
– Lighttpd + mongrel

However, we do officially recommend and support mod_rails as the best  
and easiest way to run any Rails app.


Regarding my appreciation, I know I've made some mistakes (5.0 was one  
of them : relying too much on the tests and not testing in production  
mode enough). However, I prefer having negative feedback as long as  
it's argumented and documented, it's much better than just yay, your  
appz is so cool when you want to improve things.


Regards,
Frédéric

--
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]tel: +33 (0)6 62 19 1337
http://fredericdevillamil.com Typo : http://typosphere.org

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-17 Thread Robert Sanford
Scott blathered thusly
 It's not my ball, it's everyone else's ball.  I do not suffer the problem of
 a 6-month release cycle, or how painful Ruby on Rails is to deploy.  I
 realize I don't see your pain, so perhaps if you could actually write up a
 way we could make this easier for you?  Because clearly I don't get it, and
 won't get it.  So instead of venting your frustration the way you are,
 please educate us.

Let's see...

Chet said Doesn't work w/ MarsEdit or TextMate client-side publishing
tools and Frederic responded saying You're right, it doesn't in the
release but is in the trunk and wait for the next release.

Chet said Documentation is sub-optimal and Frederic responded saying
You're right, it is sub-optimal because I haven't put too much effort
into it. I'll work on that.

Chet said Updating the blog is failing and Frederic responded saying
You're right, that is a defect that has been fixed in the trunk. It
will be in the next release.

Chet said Installation and upgrades are somewhat awkward especially
compared to more mature solutions implemented in other languages. and
Frederic and most everyone else said You're right, they are awkward
due to the options and evolving Ruby platform and we choose to put up
with that because we like Ruby and Typo but we understand your pain.

So now I'm confused - If one of the maintainers is agreeing that
Chet's posted issues are both understandable and valid then why would
you continue arguing?

rjsjr
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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-17 Thread Kevin Williams
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:21 PM, Chet Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Jul 16, 2008, at 7:34 PM, Kevin Williams wrote:
 Let's compare to a Wordpress blog run on Apache using mod_php. The PHP
 code does not serves all requests. Apache serves up the static content
 (css, javascript, graphics, etc.). Many popular front-end servers also
 perform proxying and load balancing, and tons of other functions.
 Mod_php just runs the PHP code. Most Ruby web apps are served in this
 fashion rather than by an Apache module because it was easier to
 implement

 This must be some radical other definition of easier.

At the time Mongrel came around, no one, and I mean no one, would
touch the mod_ruby code. Webrick was slow and FastCGI was very buggy
at best. Zed Shaw stepped up with a strictly-spec-compliant and fast
web server for Ruby. There was much rejoicing and dancing in the
streets. You can call it radical if you want to, but it worked very
well.


 (at the time mod_ruby was a memory-leaking nightmare) and it
 is a more flexible design by virtue of not being tied to Apache and by
 being proxyable behind any decent http proxy.

 It's not a bad idea, it's a sound idea. Please settle down and ask
 polite questions if you truly want to understand and use Typo.

 If you really think I'm the one that needs to settle down, I think you must
 have been reading some other thread.

I politely asked you to change the tone of your requests, yet you
continue to be confrontational. Please stop. Comments such as that's
ridiculous and that's a very bad idea and repeatedly saying you're
wrong when you've clearly shown that you don't understand why things
are the way they are now is just causing trouble. You have issues with
Typo and want help. Is this really how you ask for help?


 I've made it abundantly clear that I am 100% uninterested in installation
 tweaks right now because I am dealing with bugs in Typo. That's my
  front-burner issue. If these bugs can't get resolved, the installation
 issues are irrelevant. I appreciate you explaining the rationale for
 Mongrel, et. al., above, nevertheless.

You're welcome, and thank you for saying so.
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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-17 Thread Chet Farmer


On Jul 17, 2008, at 10:02 AM, Kevin Williams wrote:

At the time Mongrel came around, no one, and I mean no one, would
touch the mod_ruby code. Webrick was slow and FastCGI was very buggy
at best. Zed Shaw stepped up with a strictly-spec-compliant and fast
web server for Ruby. There was much rejoicing and dancing in the
streets. You can call it radical if you want to, but it worked very
well.


I appreciate you giving the backstory here, but having to include  
another web server, though, is not something I'd describe as easier  
when compared to other tools that require only one.



Please settle down and ask
polite questions if you truly want to understand and use Typo.


If you really think I'm the one that needs to settle down, I think  
you must

have been reading some other thread.


I politely asked you to change the tone of your requests, yet you
continue to be confrontational.


I was confrontational to Scott because his posts were snide, rude,  
useless knee-jerk defenses of his pet stack.



Please stop. Comments such as that's
ridiculous and that's a very bad idea and repeatedly saying you're
wrong when you've clearly shown that you don't understand why things
are the way they are now is just causing trouble.


My complaints really began with this very point; recall one of my  
original points was the poor state of documentation concerning the  
idiosyncratic installation requirements of Typo.


If it were more clear why I should consider installing another web  
server just to run Typo from Typo's own docs, perhaps I wouldn't be  
complaining about the docs.



You have issues with
Typo and want help. Is this really how you ask for help?


I certainly wasn't asking Scott for help, and he certainly wasn't  
providing any. He jumped in to tell me my assessment of the state of  
Ruby/Rails/Typo installation was wrong, which is simply incorrect.  
He's offered nothing of value to me in re: my actual problems.


My original posts to this list met with either no response at all, or,  
more recently, helpful responses from Frederic. Frankly, I was  
surprised, after that, to get Scott's fanboy eruptions. I believe I  
dealt with him appropriately, and with a level of grace appropriate  
for handling such a poster.




Chet
-
Life has improved immeasurably since I have been forced  to stop  
taking it seriously.  Hunter S. Thompson



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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-17 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 17, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Chet Farmer wrote:
My complaints really began with this very point; recall one of my  
original points was the poor state of documentation concerning the  
idiosyncratic installation requirements of Typo.


If it were more clear why I should consider installing another web  
server just to run Typo from Typo's own docs, perhaps I wouldn't be  
complaining about the docs.



You have issues with
Typo and want help. Is this really how you ask for help?


I certainly wasn't asking Scott for help, and he certainly wasn't  
providing any. He jumped in to tell me my assessment of the state of  
Ruby/Rails/Typo installation was wrong, which is simply incorrect.  
He's offered nothing of value to me in re: my actual problems.


My original posts to this list met with either no response at all,  
or, more recently, helpful responses from Frederic. Frankly, I was  
surprised, after that, to get Scott's fanboy eruptions. I believe I  
dealt with him appropriately, and with a level of grace appropriate  
for handling such a poster.


Perhaps you mistook my emails as a knee-jerk nonsense emails.  But I  
was trying to get more information to provide some assistance, however  
I was not getting any valid feedback.  I realize I did not word them  
in a way that you wanted, however my intent was to get more  
information to help.


I searched through old emails trying to find any information of why  
you could not do this or that, and Truthfully all I could find were  
posts related to MarsEdit.  Which those bugs have been fixed in  
trunk, if you want you can try updating to Trunk and see if that  
fixes your problems?



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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-17 Thread de Villamil Frédéric

Le 17 juil. 08 à 22:30, Scott Likens a écrit :



On Jul 17, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Chet Farmer wrote:
My complaints really began with this very point; recall one of my  
original points was the poor state of documentation concerning the  
idiosyncratic installation requirements of Typo.


If it were more clear why I should consider installing another web  
server just to run Typo from Typo's own docs, perhaps I wouldn't be  
complaining about the docs.



You have issues with
Typo and want help. Is this really how you ask for help?


I certainly wasn't asking Scott for help, and he certainly wasn't  
providing any. He jumped in to tell me my assessment of the state  
of Ruby/Rails/Typo installation was wrong, which is simply  
incorrect. He's offered nothing of value to me in re: my actual  
problems.


My original posts to this list met with either no response at all,  
or, more recently, helpful responses from Frederic. Frankly, I was  
surprised, after that, to get Scott's fanboy eruptions. I believe I  
dealt with him appropriately, and with a level of grace appropriate  
for handling such a poster.


Perhaps you mistook my emails as a knee-jerk nonsense emails.  But I  
was trying to get more information to provide some assistance,  
however I was not getting any valid feedback.  I realize I did not  
word them in a way that you wanted, however my intent was to get  
more information to help.


I searched through old emails trying to find any information of why  
you could not do this or that, and Truthfully all I could find were  
posts related to MarsEdit.  Which those bugs have been fixed in  
trunk, if you want you can try updating to Trunk and see if that  
fixes your problems?



I've fixed MetaWeblog API tags issues as well in trunk today. However,  
it seems marsedit doesn't support that feature (or didn't found how to  
do so). Other issue for me is that the Metaweblog API provides a  
getCategories method, but no way to getKeywords, which means 2 things :
– Using the metaweblog API won't let you see which tags already exist  
on your blog (our wb based admin interface now have tags autocompletion)
– Editing a post will make you delete every tags used so far from this  
post, unless you remember them and add them by hand.


Regarding the documentation, I've been talking with a friend today  
about what we should provide. Cool things came up, and amongst them  
the fact we should officially support one installation way of self  
hosting Typo, which means the easiest one (obvious heh ?). Having to  
choose between 3 webservers, and 3 ways to serve pages (mod_rails,  
(Fast)CGI and application server) is just too confusing for people. If  
they want to deploy their webserver an exotic way (that's to say  
without Apache + MySQL which are the most widespread things you've  
ever found on the Internet), it's not our problem. However, we'll keep  
the existing docs about exotic configs for information purpose.  
redmine.typosphere.org is a wiki, if someone want to complete... it's  
up to him / her.


Was my 2 cents, now I must leave you, I've a release t finish before  
sunday and I'd love to add some more fancy things if I can (like  
autosave). If anyone want to help instead of just trolling :-)

--
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]tel: +33 (0)6 62 19 1337
http://fredericdevillamil.com Typo : http://typosphere.org

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Chet Farmer


Look. I like Typo. I'm still trying to use it. But mails like this  
just tick me off. They provide no help to speak of while insisting  
there is no problem.


Also, proofreading is a good idea.

On Jul 15, 2008, at 10:22 PM, Scott Likens wrote:

To whomever it may concern,


I reckon that would be me, among others.


I notice the common thread here.  How to deploy typo?


Why do you think that is?

The choices are:

a) Typo IS hard to deploy; or
b) Typo isn't hard to deploy, but is poorly documented; or
c) Typo isn't hard to deploy, and is well documented, but the  
documentation is hard to find; or

d) The people posting this question are all idiots.

Hint: It isn't (d), and (a), (b), and (c) are functionally identical.


There is many ways to deploy typo, the most common is

1) FastCGI.  (It's also the most murky confusing documentation imo,  
I don't blame this on typo, I blame this on FastCGI Documentation  
and the people who wrote it).

2) Mongrel/Webrick
3) Phusion Passenger (aka mod_rails?)

Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick if you run  
nginx or Apache or lighttpd.  It works, it's well documented and  
takes the most amount of memory (actually all of them really take  
the same amount of memory, you just don't see the ruby process  
hanging around using up 140megs of memory).


Um, no. It is NOT well documented, or, if it is, those documents are  
not easy to find. They're not complete at Typosphere, and they're not  
apparent anywhere else I looked. I saw rote, by-the-numbers list dox,  
but nothing that explained why I was doing what it said to do, or what  
the rationale  was behind Mongrel vs. mod_ruby, or anything an admin  
will want to know when making the choices that are part of an  
installation. If those docs exist and I somehow missed them, I will  
GLEEFULLY accept pointers.


 Phusion Passenger... Excellent option, if you have a cheap  
Dreamhost.com account that is going to be your easiest option,  
documentation is decent and it's much easier to deploy.


First I've heard of it. Maybe it's a great choice; I have no idea. I  
wish I'd known about it when I first started playing with Typo.



So there you have it, 3 basic methods to deploy your blog.


You say this as though your post constitutes instructions. This is not  
the case.


If your coding Ruby on Rails chances are this is nothing new to you,  
and you have no problem with it.  But those who have come from the  
PHP Boat (as we'll call it, a/k/a wordpress, etc) they just untar  
files into a directory edit a few files, loadup their web browser  
and bam.  It works.


Yup. Nice, too. This is, above perhaps all else, why a bad language  
(PHP) has earned such a dominant market position.


This is because the company behind PHP has spent a great deal of  
time and money at making PHP the dominant language.


Er, and PHP itself, or  mod_php, or whatever, pretty much Just Works  
without installing half a dozen more components, proxies, etc. This  
ease of use took effort, it's true, but it also provides nontrivial  
value.


It doesn't make it better, or worse or anything.  (It scales  
horribly also for those of you who are talking about scaling).


Actually, easy to deploy DOES earn an app significant points with  
pretty much any administrator I know. I consider that better.


Let's say you grab a Perl based blog, what's your common problem?   
Well mod_perl, perl with ithreads enabled.  Yeah you can use it as a  
cgi script and have it exec perl on each page/function.  But again,  
we'll go with it does not scale well.  We have Python and django, I  
know have not touched any of the django software really so I won't  
go there.


Do you have a point here?


So let's bust out some simple myths,

Rails is hard to deploy, FALSE.  In fact Ruby on Rails Applications  
are quite easy to deploy provided your hosting company gives you an  
environment where it can deploy sanely.


Is this a synonym for provided your hoster does it for you? Because  
I've installed Rails on several different *nixes over the years, and  
have *never* found it to be simple to get running in a production  
environment (i.e., ignoring quickie dev stacks like Locomotive).


 This is something that DHH has commented on a few times; there is  
no way to make the pain of deploying a Ruby on Rails app on a bad/ 
cheap hosting server go away.  Is that the fault of Ruby on Rails?  
or the company you chose to host with?  I'll let you decide on that  
one.


If application stack A installs quickly and cleanly, and  
application stack DHH doesn't, do I care? I'll let you decide on  
that one.


Shared hosting does not equal bad hosting. It's totally appropriate  
for probably 85-95% of the blogs that exist. Being essentially  
incompatible with shared hosting environments is a bad move for Rails,  
and DHH saying otherwise doesn't make it so. Being hard to get running  
in a hosted environment makes Ruby on Rails less appealing, and  

Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Rodger Donaldson

Chet Farmer wrote:
Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick if you run nginx 
or Apache or lighttpd.  It works, it's well documented and takes the 
most amount of memory (actually all of them really take the same 
amount of memory, you just don't see the ruby process hanging around 
using up 140megs of memory).


Um, no. It is NOT well documented, or, if it is, those documents are not 
easy to find. 


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with mod_proxy 
was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


It doesn't make it better, or worse or anything.  (It scales horribly 
also for those of you who are talking about scaling).


Actually, easy to deploy DOES earn an app significant points with 
pretty much any administrator I know. I consider that better.


Yes.  And, frankly, Ruby + gems on most Linux distros is in such a state 
that I end up maintaining my own Ruby install from source.  Given the 
pain of the recent security holes (for example), I find that this is 
actually driving me to think I should can it and go for the same suite 
of PHP apps as everyone else.


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens

Chet,

Which portion of the documentation needs to be revised? FastCGI?  
Mongrel? I suppose someone can whip up some instructions on how to  
make the config.ru for Passenger if need be.  Typo is imo extremely  
easy to deploy and get up in running in under 5 minutes.  If your  
having a problem deploying typo please elaborate and tell us what the  
problem is with you deploying Typo so we can help you deploy it?  I  
can read over old e-mails however that does not always constitute the  
current situation.  Specifics are excellent, like are you using Apache  
2.0? 2.2? 1.3?  How are you attempting to deploy it via FastCGI?  
Mongrel?


As far as Phusion Passenger (http://www.modrails.com/) it's actually  
if you look at their site they even have tested Typo with it (http://www.modrails.com/documentation.html 
).


Ideally, one would like to use Swiftiply (Mongrel with some added  
performance), but that's not here nor there.


In typo 4.1.1 (I won't reference a recent version because I don't have  
one installed currently) there is typo/installer and inside there is  
examples for apache13 apache20 (which works for 22) and lighttpd  
(fastcgi).  For the most part you should just have to Copy  Paste,  
modify the small things and go.


But I will leave the question open here,

How can we help you deploy Typo? be as specific as possible.



On Jul 15, 2008, at 11:24 PM, Chet Farmer wrote:



Look. I like Typo. I'm still trying to use it. But mails like this  
just tick me off. They provide no help to speak of while insisting  
there is no problem.


Also, proofreading is a good idea.

On Jul 15, 2008, at 10:22 PM, Scott Likens wrote:

To whomever it may concern,


I reckon that would be me, among others.


I notice the common thread here.  How to deploy typo?


Why do you think that is?

The choices are:

a) Typo IS hard to deploy; or
b) Typo isn't hard to deploy, but is poorly documented; or
c) Typo isn't hard to deploy, and is well documented, but the  
documentation is hard to find; or

d) The people posting this question are all idiots.

Hint: It isn't (d), and (a), (b), and (c) are functionally identical.


There is many ways to deploy typo, the most common is

1) FastCGI.  (It's also the most murky confusing documentation imo,  
I don't blame this on typo, I blame this on FastCGI Documentation  
and the people who wrote it).

2) Mongrel/Webrick
3) Phusion Passenger (aka mod_rails?)

Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick if you run  
nginx or Apache or lighttpd.  It works, it's well documented and  
takes the most amount of memory (actually all of them really take  
the same amount of memory, you just don't see the ruby process  
hanging around using up 140megs of memory).


Um, no. It is NOT well documented, or, if it is, those documents are  
not easy to find. They're not complete at Typosphere, and they're  
not apparent anywhere else I looked. I saw rote, by-the-numbers list  
dox, but nothing that explained why I was doing what it said to do,  
or what the rationale  was behind Mongrel vs. mod_ruby, or anything  
an admin will want to know when making the choices that are part of  
an installation. If those docs exist and I somehow missed them, I  
will GLEEFULLY accept pointers.


Phusion Passenger... Excellent option, if you have a cheap  
Dreamhost.com account that is going to be your easiest option,  
documentation is decent and it's much easier to deploy.


First I've heard of it. Maybe it's a great choice; I have no idea. I  
wish I'd known about it when I first started playing with Typo.



So there you have it, 3 basic methods to deploy your blog.


You say this as though your post constitutes instructions. This is  
not the case.


If your coding Ruby on Rails chances are this is nothing new to  
you, and you have no problem with it.  But those who have come from  
the PHP Boat (as we'll call it, a/k/a wordpress, etc) they just  
untar files into a directory edit a few files, loadup their web  
browser and bam.  It works.


Yup. Nice, too. This is, above perhaps all else, why a bad  
language (PHP) has earned such a dominant market position.


This is because the company behind PHP has spent a great deal of  
time and money at making PHP the dominant language.


Er, and PHP itself, or  mod_php, or whatever, pretty much Just Works  
without installing half a dozen more components, proxies, etc. This  
ease of use took effort, it's true, but it also provides nontrivial  
value.


It doesn't make it better, or worse or anything.  (It scales  
horribly also for those of you who are talking about scaling).


Actually, easy to deploy DOES earn an app significant points with  
pretty much any administrator I know. I consider that better.


Let's say you grab a Perl based blog, what's your common problem?   
Well mod_perl, perl with ithreads enabled.  Yeah you can use it as  
a cgi script and have it exec perl on each page/function.  But  
again, we'll go with it does not scale 

Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 16, 2008, at 12:14 AM, Rodger Donaldson wrote:


Chet Farmer wrote:
Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick if you run  
nginx or Apache or lighttpd.  It works, it's well documented and  
takes the most amount of memory (actually all of them really take  
the same amount of memory, you just don't see the ruby process  
hanging around using up 140megs of memory).
Um, no. It is NOT well documented, or, if it is, those documents  
are not easy to find.


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with  
mod_proxy was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


Why is mod_proxy working with mongrel such an exercise?

 Proxy *
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
  /Proxy

  ProxyPass / http://localhost:4485
  ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4485
  ProxyPreserveHost On

That's it as a whole, 7 whole lines.  Add that to your apache  
configuration in a Virtualhost area for your blog and startup typo and  
you should be golden.


It doesn't make it better, or worse or anything.  (It scales  
horribly also for those of you who are talking about scaling).
Actually, easy to deploy DOES earn an app significant points with  
pretty much any administrator I know. I consider that better.


Yes.  And, frankly, Ruby + gems on most Linux distros is in such a  
state that I end up maintaining my own Ruby install from source.   
Given the pain of the recent security holes (for example), I find  
that this is actually driving me to think I should can it and go for  
the same suite of PHP apps as everyone else.


I will agree with that, as Debian Etch currently has Ruby 1.8.4(2? i  
forget) with Rubygems 0.92.  However is that Ruby's problem? or the  
Linux distribution you chose?  If they are willing to give you that  
old of Ruby, what makes you think the PHP is any more recent?


... Now I agree they should update that to at least 1.8.6, and  
Rubygems 1.2.0, however they have their release cycle and unless it's  
a critical security fix you will never get it until the next release.   
Ubuntu's way of handling Ruby is quite odd to say the least.  I tried  
CentOS 5 out of the box, got Warehouseapp running for a customer in a  
matter of minutes however.  yum worked perfectly for me, and I had 0  
issues with it. I've tried Gentoo and it's worked excellent also, so  
perhaps some research is in order?


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Chet Farmer


On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Scott Likens wrote:


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with  
mod_proxy was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


Why is mod_proxy working with mongrel such an exercise?


Beats me. Perhaps you should refer to the first portion of my reply to  
you last night.


It's clearly a problem, though. It's also a problem that the purpose  
of Mongrel isn't made clear; you just have to take on faith that it's  
something you need to do based on the sketchy installation guide.


Yes.  And, frankly, Ruby + gems on most Linux distros is in such a  
state that I end up maintaining my own Ruby install from source.   
Given the pain of the recent security holes (for example), I find  
that this is actually driving me to think I should can it and go  
for the same suite of PHP apps as everyone else.


I will agree with that, as Debian Etch currently has Ruby 1.8.4(2? i  
forget) with Rubygems 0.92.  However is that Ruby's problem? or the  
Linux distribution you chose?


It's definitely Ruby's problem if PHP, Perl, Python, etc., are all  
running fine out of the box.


Here, you're defaulting back to a knee-jerk defense of what is clearly  
your pet language. That has no place here. Compared to LAMP-stack  
stuff, RoR applications are much harder to set up and deploy. They  
require a totally different approach, and that approach is very poorly  
documented. This isn't a controversial statement.





---
Don't let your mongoose get cold or dirty, or it will die.
(Animals as Friends and How to Keep Them, by Shaw  Fisher, Dent 1939)

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Chet Farmer


On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:04 AM, Scott Likens wrote:
Which portion of the documentation needs to be revised? FastCGI?  
Mongrel?


Honestly, all of it. I know that's a broad answer, but it's the truth.  
Compare the installation experience of a LAMP stack tool to Typo's and  
you'll see the huge gap.


In particular, deeper descriptions of why Mongrel needs to be  
involved, what the alternatives to a Mongrel configuration are, and  
why one might choose one approach over the other are ALL questions  
that need to be addressed. I made that clear in my prior post.


Typo is imo extremely easy to deploy and get up in running in under  
5 minutes.


Here, you're just plain wrong.

 If your having a problem deploying typo please elaborate and tell  
us what the problem is with you deploying Typo so we can help you  
deploy it?


I had problems getting mine to run, that's certainly true. But at this  
point my Typo runs (just not in the way I really want it do; the  
machine can't also run Apache -- as, again, I've made clear before).


My issues are bugs in Typo. If I can't get those bugs resolved, Typo's  
quirky and difficult installation issues will become academic, as I'll  
have to migrate to something else. The important bugs to ME are:


-- my feeds do not dynamically update. They get created when first  
requested, but are then frozen in amber.


-- Typo does not work properly with MarsEdit or other stand-alone  
editors. This is a show-stopper for me. 

I also have some other outstanding questions regarding updating my  
Typo, and verifying the version I have, but those are in another mail  
I posted early yesterday, I believe, and are part of a dialog with  
Frederic.


- How do I verify what version of Typo I have?
- How is it best to upgrade Typo? What specific steps should be taken,  
and why?



---
They say no mortal woman was enough for him so he made one himself  
outta whiskey an liquors an ale, says me. An he loved her like a  
lumberjack made of eating loves a woman made of ham. (Fafblog  
2004-08-05)


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Rodger Donaldson

Chet Farmer wrote:


On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Scott Likens wrote:


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with 
mod_proxy was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


Why is mod_proxy working with mongrel such an exercise?


Beats me. Perhaps you should refer to the first portion of my reply to 
you last night.


Explanation by analogy would be helpful; Mogrel fills a role similar to 
that of Tomcat for JSP applications would be a good starting point for 
most people with experience with web apps.


The best explanations of how to make it all hang together well I found 
were at


http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/, 


http://jonathan.tron.name/2006/07/26/apache-2-0-x-mongrel-mod_proxy-mod_rewrite-configuration

but one of those is talking about another Rails blog tool, of course.

This would require Typosphere to be online and updated from time to time.

It's definitely Ruby's problem if PHP, Perl, Python, etc., are all 
running fine out of the box.


It is a problem with Ruby  Gems specifically that Gems don't integrate 
as smoothly as extending Perl with non-packaged CPAN modules does on 
major Linux distros.


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Rodger Donaldson

Scott Likens wrote:


On Jul 16, 2008, at 12:14 AM, Rodger Donaldson wrote:


Chet Farmer wrote:
Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick if you run 
nginx or Apache or lighttpd.  It works, it's well documented and 
takes the most amount of memory (actually all of them really take 
the same amount of memory, you just don't see the ruby process 
hanging around using up 140megs of memory).
Um, no. It is NOT well documented, or, if it is, those documents are 
not easy to find.


I'll certainly agree with that.  Getting mongrel working with 
mod_proxy was essentially an exercise in Google and reading blogs.


Why is mod_proxy working with mongrel such an exercise?


That's it as a whole, 7 whole lines.  Add that to your apache 
configuration in a Virtualhost area for your blog and startup typo and 
you should be golden.


At which point you wonder why everything is running so slow, and you 
discover that mongrel really, really sucks at delivering image files and 
the like.  So your 7 line example works if you want horrible performance 
with even a trivial number of users.


I've tried Gentoo and it's worked excellent also, so perhaps some research is 
in order?


Actually, I've used Ruby on a number of the Linux problems, and the 
interaction of Gems and Ruby is a problem on all of them.  A snide and 
condescendng tone does not change this fact, it merely convinces people 
they don't want to bother using typo.

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 16, 2008, at 12:12 PM, Rodger Donaldson wrote:


Why is mod_proxy working with mongrel such an exercise?
That's it as a whole, 7 whole lines.  Add that to your apache  
configuration in a Virtualhost area for your blog and startup typo  
and you should be golden.
At which point you wonder why everything is running so slow, and you  
discover that mongrel really, really sucks at delivering image files  
and the like.  So your 7 line example works if you want horrible  
performance with even a trivial number of users.


I absolutely agree.  Mongrel does suck for delivering images, however  
that is part of scaling and proper design.  If you use Swiftiply it  
does take some of the pain away, but Mongrel has certain problems (or  
should I say rails really?) images, uploading images... bone jarring  
pain.  If you have let's say a gallery, and you want it to send 80  
thumbnails to a user.  Well that's just inefficient when you can have  
Apache or whatever web server you have handle the images in 1/32nd of  
the time.  FastCGI really does not make that pain go away, it's  
usually easier to host your images on apache and have your 'rails app'  
reflect where the images are to be pulled.  Lessens the amount of  
requests per second to Mongrel(or whatever you use) which can make  
your web app smoother as well as allows other users to take up the  
requests that the images were sucking up.


I've tried Gentoo and it's worked excellent also, so perhaps some  
research is in order?


Actually, I've used Ruby on a number of the Linux problems, and the  
interaction of Gems and Ruby is a problem on all of them.  A snide  
and condescendng tone does not change this fact, it merely convinces  
people they don't want to bother using typo.


That would be a side effect, some call it 'maturity', I prefer to  
consider it stagnation.  It's been many years since there was a major  
Perl version release.  When Perl6 starts coming in Linux Distributions  
you'll feel the same exact pain as you do for Ruby.  I like to call  
this side effect People telling you what to run, how to run it, and  
what version to run.  I dislike that side effect because if you want  
to run your own version it becomes painful (even for Systems  
Administrators it's painful) and after a certain point you  have to  
decide when it's too much and you need a change so you don't have to  
keep doing this.


I disagree that it's a typo issue really, the issues you are feeling  
are more Ruby issues and Ruby on Rails, not Typo.  You can ask Someone  
to update this and update that and make Ruby a better experience, but  
if they don't give a damn to do that ... There's not much to do.  I  
consider that one of the pains of running a Binary Distribution.  They  
attempt to lock you into what they offer you, and make it a hassle to  
go beyond that.




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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens

On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:38 AM, Chet Farmer wrote:

Beats me. Perhaps you should refer to the first portion of my reply  
to you last night.


It's clearly a problem, though. It's also a problem that the purpose  
of Mongrel isn't made clear; you just have to take on faith that  
it's something you need to do based on the sketchy installation guide.


After reading your posts I'm not sure if you are using Debian, or  
what... however Here's a few articles courtesy of the folks at mongrel.


http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/wiki/Debian
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/wiki/OSX
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/wiki/Lighttpd

(Formatting seems to be off on the last 2) however you get the idea.

It's definitely Ruby's problem if PHP, Perl, Python, etc., are all  
running fine out of the box.


Here, you're defaulting back to a knee-jerk defense of what is  
clearly your pet language. That has no place here. Compared to LAMP- 
stack stuff, RoR applications are much harder to set up and deploy.  
They require a totally different approach, and that approach is very  
poorly documented. This isn't a controversial statement.


Do  you have the latest version of Python 2.5? what if you want to  
deploy a Django application that requires Python 2.5? and some feature  
that was not included in your build of python.  knee-jerk defense  
about Perl... it hasn't been updated in 2years? So let's disclude that  
from the discussion.  If your Linux distribution is running an version  
older then 5.8.4 (current is 5.8.8) you should be pretty much shot.


Unfortunately things change rapidly, things are updated, bug fixes  
made.  Some Linux distributions run on a 6-month Release Cycle, so in  
6-months they play catchup and update all the things that they can.   
They miss somethings, however that's not here nor there.  My knee-jerk  
solution is if LAMP is so easy to deploy, then why not use it? or why  
not use Perl or Python?


I admit I love the beauty of the Ruby Language, however if there's  
something out there that does the same job as Typo and is easier to  
deploy and works better then I say go ahead.


It's unfortunate that MarsEdit was one of your Hanging Chads... I  
never got around to buying a License of MarsEdit, I just couldn't be  
bothered with it, I would rather write in TextMate and then copy and  
paste.


However one of my long standing issues with Typo has been ... *drum  
roll* how I have to insert br's into my posts because I included a  
html tag, and somehow it broke the whole mess.  So either I can have  
badly formatted posts that look worse then my emails ... or I can  
force a line break every here and there so make it look cleaner.


I do admit though that Frédéric responded slow on the Typo 5.0 Beta  
(Rails 2) release to my dismay, I lost my typo install twice due to a  
cache error, and it took several more people to have the same problem  
before it was even brought up.  But overall he try's and that's what  
counts.


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:43 AM, Chet Farmer wrote:



On Jul 16, 2008, at 6:04 AM, Scott Likens wrote:
Which portion of the documentation needs to be revised? FastCGI?  
Mongrel?


Honestly, all of it. I know that's a broad answer, but it's the  
truth. Compare the installation experience of a LAMP stack tool to  
Typo's and you'll see the huge gap.


In particular, deeper descriptions of why Mongrel needs to be  
involved, what the alternatives to a Mongrel configuration are, and  
why one might choose one approach over the other are ALL questions  
that need to be addressed. I made that clear in my prior post.


We are comparing an Apple to a Pear, LAMP is not the same as LAMR or a  
Ruby on Rails install.  Please stop comparing it, you are doing  
nothing useful by doing that.


What is mongrel? Let's see here if this quote satisfy's you.

Mongrel is a small library that provides a very fast HTTP 1.1 server  
for Ruby web applications. It is not particular to any framework, and  
is intended to be just enough to get a web application running behind  
a more complete and robust web server.


What makes Mongrel so fast is the careful use of an Ragel extension to  
provide fast, accurate HTTP 1.1 protocol parsing. This makes the  
server scream without too many portability issues.


See mongrel.rubyforge.org for more information. 

A bit technical, but Mongrel is a Web Server.  Like Apache, or nginx  
or lighttpd.  Except that all it cares about and knows about is the  
application in which it is running.  Technically you can run it on  
port 80 (if you run it as root) and remove the whole extra web server  
from the equation.  Mongrel is for Ruby what mod_php is for Rails (bad  
analogy).  It does all the dirty work and forwards the end product to  
Apache and then to the end-user.  You can compare it to Tomcat or  
Jetty I guess, however that's not here nor there.


Typo is imo extremely easy to deploy and get up in running in under  
5 minutes.


Here, you're just plain wrong.

If your having a problem deploying typo please elaborate and tell  
us what the problem is with you deploying Typo so we can help you  
deploy it?


I had problems getting mine to run, that's certainly true. But at  
this point my Typo runs (just not in the way I really want it do;  
the machine can't also run Apache -- as, again, I've made clear  
before).


My issues are bugs in Typo. If I can't get those bugs resolved,  
Typo's quirky and difficult installation issues will become  
academic, as I'll have to migrate to something else. The important  
bugs to ME are:


-- my feeds do not dynamically update. They get created when first  
requested, but are then frozen in amber.


-- Typo does not work properly with MarsEdit or other stand-alone  
editors. This is a show-stopper for me.
I also have some other outstanding questions regarding updating my  
Typo, and verifying the version I have, but those are in another  
mail I posted early yesterday, I believe, and are part of a dialog  
with Frederic.


- How do I verify what version of Typo I have?
- How is it best to upgrade Typo? What specific steps should be  
taken, and why?



Frédéric has pretty much gone into the other problems you addressed.

However, the best method of updating/upgrading typo depends on the  
backend.


Let's say you use SQLite3

1) backup your databases in db/ to a separate location
2) unarchive the new version of typo in a separate directory (for  
staging or testing purposes).
3) copy the backed up databases (do not move them, we want to keep a  
pristine copy still somewhere) to db/
4) verify you are using the proper environment (e.g. PRODUCTION /  
DEVELOPMENT ...) and then run rake db:migrate

5) start typo on a different port then the original typo is running on.
6) Browse to the site by ip:port and verify if everything worked as  
planned, and if it did not discuss how it did not work properly, and  
if it did work how it can work easier.


... Now let's say you use MySQL.

1) mysqldump your typo database for backup purposes.
2) mysqlhotcopy -u root -p typo typo2
3) fixup the grants if need be so your typo login can see typo2 (if  
you use the root account for typo you can skip this step)
4) unarchive the new version of typo, and setup database.yml to see  
typo2 and the proper credentials and settings.

5) rake db:migrate
6) start typo on a different port and test it out.

Of course you'll have to reinstall your plugins and themes.  I believe  
as a standard practice it's best to set the theme to default and  
disable your plugins before you do the backup.  I don't know if  
Frédéric has resolved the technical details of plugins missing and  
themes missing and having to goto the admin interface and fix it, or  
delve into the MySQL database and disable plugins that way.


But that's a pretty short write-up.

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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Chet Farmer


On Jul 16, 2008, at 5:38 PM, Scott Likens wrote:
Honestly, all of it. I know that's a broad answer, but it's the  
truth. Compare the installation experience of a LAMP stack tool to  
Typo's and you'll see the huge gap.


In particular, deeper descriptions of why Mongrel needs to be  
involved, what the alternatives to a Mongrel configuration are, and  
why one might choose one approach over the other are ALL questions  
that need to be addressed. I made that clear in my prior post.


We are comparing an Apple to a Pear, LAMP is not the same as LAMR or  
a Ruby on Rails install.  Please stop comparing it, you are doing  
nothing useful by doing that.


Are you really saying you can't compare a Ruby app with a LAMP app?  
That's ridiculous. How else can someone decide between Typo and MT and  
WP and etc?


No, you're just wrong. It makes PERFECT sense to compare the  
experience of setting up and using Application X with that of using  
Application Y if both X and Y are competitors in the same market  
(i.e., blogging software).



What is mongrel? Let's see here if this quote satisfy's you.

Mongrel is a small library that provides a very fast HTTP 1.1  
server for Ruby web applications. It is not particular to any  
framework, and is intended to be just enough to get a web  
application running behind a more complete and robust web server.


What makes Mongrel so fast is the careful use of an Ragel extension  
to provide fast, accurate HTTP 1.1 protocol parsing. This makes the  
server scream without too many portability issues.


See mongrel.rubyforge.org for more information. 

A bit technical, but Mongrel is a Web Server.  Like Apache, or nginx  
or lighttpd.  Except that all it cares about and knows about is the  
application in which it is running.  Technically you can run it on  
port 80 (if you run it as root) and remove the whole extra web  
server from the equation.  Mongrel is for Ruby what mod_php is for  
Rails (bad analogy).  It does all the dirty work and forwards the  
end product to Apache and then to the end-user.  You can compare it  
to Tomcat or Jetty I guess, however that's not here nor there.


Why on earth would you need to run a second web server? That seems  
like a really bad idea, frankly, hence my annoyance that the most  
obvious question (which boils down to WTF?, essentially)  isn't  
addressed.



Frédéric has pretty much gone into the other problems you addressed.

However, the best method of updating/upgrading typo depends on the  
backend.


Let's say you use SQLite3

1) backup your databases in db/ to a separate location
2) unarchive the new version of typo in a separate directory (for  
staging or testing purposes).
3) copy the backed up databases (do not move them, we want to keep a  
pristine copy still somewhere) to db/
4) verify you are using the proper environment (e.g. PRODUCTION /  
DEVELOPMENT ...) and then run rake db:migrate


What does rake do in this context?

5) start typo on a different port then the original typo is running  
on.
6) Browse to the site by ip:port and verify if everything worked as  
planned, and if it did not discuss how it did not work properly, and  
if it did work how it can work easier.


Of course you'll have to reinstall your plugins and themes.




To put it mildly, that's a bit bizarre and very unfriendly to the user.


I believe as a standard practice


Maybe for Typo. Not for anything else I use.

Chet Farmer

When you've got an RV, a jet pack, and a monkey you really don't need  
much actual content  - KS





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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread JZ
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 4:22 AM, Scott Likens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 To whomever it may concern,
 I notice the common thread here.  How to deploy typo?

 There is many ways to deploy typo, the most common is
 1) FastCGI.

We all know, it sucks.

 2) Mongrel/Webrick

Nginx with proxy load balancer to cluster of Thin/Ebb (+unix socket)
processes is a much faster.

 3) Phusion Passenger (aka mod_rails?)

This is the best option. Fast and dead brain simple to deploy (just like PHP).

 Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick

Mongrel is much faster than Webrick. Thin is faster than Mongrel, and
Ebb is faster than Mongrel or Thin.

  But those who have come from the PHP Boat (as we'll call
 it, a/k/a wordpress, etc) they just untar files into a directory edit a few
 files, loadup their web browser and bam.  It works.

Phusion mod_passenger  (http://www.modrails.com/) works in the very
same way. Just copy your files, load web browser and bam. It works.
Need to reload application? No problem. Create empty restart.txt file
in the tmp folder. Apache will reload the application. No need to
restart Apache. No SSH needed. Simple FTP access is all you need.
mod_passenger works also with others  Ruby frameworks which use
Rack,e.g. Merb. It even works also with Python... :)

You also forget mention Ruby Enterprise version which uses 33% less
memory... It works fine with mod_passenger and lowers the memory
footprint. http://www.rubyenterpriseedition.com/

mod_passenger is _the easiest option_  for deployment Rails
applications (including Typo).

But, there is also another, 4-th deploy option: JRuby. It is also
brain dead simple to deploy. Just create WAR file and copy it into
webapps Tomcat's folder. That's all!

sudo jruby -S gem install warbler, activerecord-jdbc-adapter
jruby -S rails my_app

For developing use: jruby script/server; jruby script/console etc.

For production, just create  ROOT.war file (with warble war command)
and copy it into webapps folder in Tomcat, Jetty or another Java
servlets container. This WAR file contains ALL gems (including JRuby
interpreter) so it works fine in all platforms.

-- 
Jaroslaw Zabiello
http://blog.zabiello.com
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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens

On Jul 16, 2008, at 3:47 PM, Chet Farmer wrote:

We are comparing an Apple to a Pear, LAMP is not the same as LAMR  
or a Ruby on Rails install.  Please stop comparing it, you are  
doing nothing useful by doing that.


Are you really saying you can't compare a Ruby app with a LAMP app?  
That's ridiculous. How else can someone decide between Typo and MT  
and WP and etc?


No, you're just wrong. It makes PERFECT sense to compare the  
experience of setting up and using Application X with that of using  
Application Y if both X and Y are competitors in the same market  
(i.e., blogging software).


As I said above, you are doing nothing useful in this argument.  Stop  
it.  If you care that much passionately, then run Wordpress.  The  
argument is self defeating, because you are comparing apples to  
pears.  You can try this argument on a Django list and see how far you  
get.



What is mongrel? Let's see here if this quote satisfy's you.

Mongrel is a small library that provides a very fast HTTP 1.1  
server for Ruby web applications. It is not particular to any  
framework, and is intended to be just enough to get a web  
application running behind a more complete and robust web server.


What makes Mongrel so fast is the careful use of an Ragel extension  
to provide fast, accurate HTTP 1.1 protocol parsing. This makes the  
server scream without too many portability issues.


See mongrel.rubyforge.org for more information. 

A bit technical, but Mongrel is a Web Server.  Like Apache, or  
nginx or lighttpd.  Except that all it cares about and knows about  
is the application in which it is running.  Technically you can run  
it on port 80 (if you run it as root) and remove the whole extra  
web server from the equation.  Mongrel is for Ruby what mod_php is  
for Rails (bad analogy).  It does all the dirty work and forwards  
the end product to Apache and then to the end-user.  You can  
compare it to Tomcat or Jetty I guess, however that's not here nor  
there.


Why on earth would you need to run a second web server? That seems  
like a really bad idea, frankly, hence my annoyance that the most  
obvious question (which boils down to WTF?, essentially)  isn't  
addressed.


Then I suggest you to take that torch up with the Mongrel Mailing list  
and ask them.





Frédéric has pretty much gone into the other problems you addressed.

However, the best method of updating/upgrading typo depends on the  
backend.


Let's say you use SQLite3

1) backup your databases in db/ to a separate location
2) unarchive the new version of typo in a separate directory (for  
staging or testing purposes).
3) copy the backed up databases (do not move them, we want to keep  
a pristine copy still somewhere) to db/
4) verify you are using the proper environment (e.g. PRODUCTION /  
DEVELOPMENT ...) and then run rake db:migrate


What does rake do in this context?


Migrations.

To Quote from http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/UnderstandingMigrations

ActiveRecordMigration allows you to use Ruby to define changes to  
your database schema, making it possible to use a version control  
system to keep things synchronized with the actual code.

This has many uses, including:

* Teams of developers – if one person makes a schema change, the  
other developers just need to update, and run “rake db:migrate”.
* Production servers – run “rake db:migrate” when you roll out a  
new release to bring the database up to date as well.
* Multiple machines – if you develop on both a desktop and a  
laptop, or in more than one location, migrations can help you keep  
them all synchronized.


In essence, your database has a 'version' number in it, and if someone  
adds a new model, or changes a model a migration is also made.  So  
that you can run 'rake db:migrate' to ensure your database is up to  
date and able to do what the new version intends to do.




5) start typo on a different port then the original typo is running  
on.
6) Browse to the site by ip:port and verify if everything worked as  
planned, and if it did not discuss how it did not work properly,  
and if it did work how it can work easier.


Of course you'll have to reinstall your plugins and themes.




To put it mildly, that's a bit bizarre and very unfriendly to the  
user.


With the exception of plugins and themes, I find the upgrade process  
very relaxing and totally capable.  Very straight forward, and easy to  
do.  You can stage an upgrade painlessly and if there's a problem you  
have not affected your actual blog in any way what so ever.



I believe as a standard practice


Maybe for Typo. Not for anything else I use.


Remind me not to hire you as a Systems Administrator.  You should  
ALWAYS make a backup, upgrade in a an test environment and verify  
everything  happened properly before you roll out the new version.   
Now I realize that isn't as Cowboy as say Wordpress, where you just  
slap in the new version and it might upgrade 

Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 16, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Chet Farmer wrote:



Scott,

You persist in answering questions that I'm not asking. At this  
point, I won't give a damn about Typo deployment again until some  
time *after* the bug fixes I require are deployed, if then.


Your ongoing insistence that Typo/Ruby IS TOO! easy to set up and  
run is, well, tiresome. Please stop.


Unfortunately things change rapidly, things are updated, bug fixes  
made.  Some Linux distributions run on a 6-month Release Cycle, so  
in 6-months they play catchup and update all the things that they  
can.  They miss somethings, however that's not here nor there.  My  
knee-jerk solution is if LAMP is so easy to deploy, then why not  
use it? or why not use Perl or Python?


Seriously? You're going there? If (other thing) is so much better,  
just USE IT! Do you not realize how petulant that sounds? Are you  
going to take your ball and go home now?


It's not my ball, it's everyone else's ball.  I do not suffer the  
problem of a 6-month release cycle, or how painful Ruby on Rails is to  
deploy.  I realize I don't see your pain, so perhaps if you could  
actually write up a way we could make this easier for you?  Because  
clearly I don't get it, and won't get it.  So instead of venting your  
frustration the way you are, please educate us.


It's unfortunate that MarsEdit was one of your Hanging Chads... I  
never got around to buying a License of MarsEdit, I just couldn't  
be bothered with it, I would rather write in TextMate and then copy  
and paste.


Post-from-local-client is a core requirement for me. Cut and paste  
is for the birds. With Blosxom, I wrote in TextMate and saved.  
That's it. A cron'd rsync did my posting for me. With proper support  
for the XML-PRC stuff, I can do that again with Typo; it works with  
WP and MT just fine via anything that supports that interface,  
including MarsEdit and TextMate via the blogging bundle.


Sounds like an excellent feature to be proposed for Typo then.  The  
proper XML-RPC Support so you can post from TextMate.


However one of my long standing issues with Typo has been ... *drum  
roll* how I have to insert br's into my posts because I included  
a html tag, and somehow it broke the whole mess.  So either I can  
have badly formatted posts that look worse then my emails ... or I  
can force a line break every here and there so make it look cleaner.


There are lots of ways to solve this. I post in Markdown.


I use Textile and I guess that's why I have that problem.

I do admit though that Frédéric responded slow on the Typo 5.0 Beta  
(Rails 2) release to my dismay, I lost my typo install twice due to  
a cache error, and it took several more people to have the same  
problem before it was even brought up.  But overall he try's and  
that's what counts.


Try that statement at work and see how far you get.

Don't get me wrong; I appreciate  Frederic's answers very much --  
and, not to put too fine a point on it, his English is better than  
yours -- but eventually I'll make a choice based on function and  
support, not how hard the maintainers are trying.


Then I will stop bothering now, because it's clear that I am wasting  
my time.


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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Scott Likens


On Jul 16, 2008, at 5:09 PM, JZ wrote:


On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 4:22 AM, Scott Likens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


To whomever it may concern,
I notice the common thread here.  How to deploy typo?

There is many ways to deploy typo, the most common is
1) FastCGI.


We all know, it sucks.


It sucks, but it takes less memory to quote someone I know who uses  
Lighttpd + FastCGI.  His rather old RSS Reading application took 250  
Megabytes of memory, for which is not there in FastCGI Mode.



2) Mongrel/Webrick


Nginx with proxy load balancer to cluster of Thin/Ebb (+unix socket)
processes is a much faster.


If thin supported Streaming (Not Media, but the Mongrel Extension) it  
would be something I would have no issue using.  I've mentioned that  
to the author of Thin and we'll see how that goes.



3) Phusion Passenger (aka mod_rails?)


This is the best option. Fast and dead brain simple to deploy (just  
like PHP).



Now, there's no real difference with Mongrel/Webrick


Mongrel is much faster than Webrick. Thin is faster than Mongrel, and
Ebb is faster than Mongrel or Thin.


But those who have come from the PHP Boat (as we'll call
it, a/k/a wordpress, etc) they just untar files into a directory  
edit a few

files, loadup their web browser and bam.  It works.


Phusion mod_passenger  (http://www.modrails.com/) works in the very
same way. Just copy your files, load web browser and bam. It works.
Need to reload application? No problem. Create empty restart.txt file
in the tmp folder. Apache will reload the application. No need to
restart Apache. No SSH needed. Simple FTP access is all you need.
mod_passenger works also with others  Ruby frameworks which use
Rack,e.g. Merb. It even works also with Python... :)

You also forget mention Ruby Enterprise version which uses 33% less
memory... It works fine with mod_passenger and lowers the memory
footprint. http://www.rubyenterpriseedition.com/

mod_passenger is _the easiest option_  for deployment Rails
applications (including Typo).

But, there is also another, 4-th deploy option: JRuby. It is also
brain dead simple to deploy. Just create WAR file and copy it into
webapps Tomcat's folder. That's all!

sudo jruby -S gem install warbler, activerecord-jdbc-adapter
jruby -S rails my_app

For developing use: jruby script/server; jruby script/console etc.

For production, just create  ROOT.war file (with warble war command)
and copy it into webapps folder in Tomcat, Jetty or another Java
servlets container. This WAR file contains ALL gems (including JRuby
interpreter) so it works fine in all platforms.


I know a few people who have been deploying Merb apps in Tomcat that  
way.  I understand it's a very easy way to pass off a Merb app as a  
Java Webapp without someone knowing what it really is.  As far as  
Ruby Enterprise Version I was not aware of that, but like everything  
you don't always find all the options in 1 concise web page.



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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Kevin Williams
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Scott Likens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 If thin supported Streaming (Not Media, but the Mongrel Extension) it would
 be something I would have no issue using.  I've mentioned that to the author
 of Thin and we'll see how that goes.


Thin depends on the eventmachine library, which is not great for
uploads because it is more of a fire-and-forget event-driven
architecture and long-running requests mess it up. Mongrel is better
at uploads. There is a solution for this for Merb users:
http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/04/18/deferred-requests-with-merb-ebb-and-thin
I have no idea if something like this can be used in a Rails app, but
that would be up to Rails/Typo to make that happen.
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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Kevin Williams
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Chet Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Why on earth would you need to run a second web server? That seems like a
 really bad idea, frankly, hence my annoyance that the most obvious question
 (which boils down to WTF?, essentially)  isn't addressed.

Let's compare to a Wordpress blog run on Apache using mod_php. The PHP
code does not serves all requests. Apache serves up the static content
(css, javascript, graphics, etc.). Many popular front-end servers also
perform proxying and load balancing, and tons of other functions.
Mod_php just runs the PHP code. Most Ruby web apps are served in this
fashion rather than by an Apache module because it was easier to
implement (at the time mod_ruby was a memory-leaking nightmare) and it
is a more flexible design by virtue of not being tied to Apache and by
being proxyable behind any decent http proxy.

It's not a bad idea, it's a sound idea. Please settle down and ask
polite questions if you truly want to understand and use Typo.
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Re: [typo] Deploying Ruby on Rails Applications (was: Re: Can't update feeds?)

2008-07-16 Thread Chet Farmer


On Jul 16, 2008, at 7:12 PM, Scott Likens wrote:
Are you really saying you can't compare a Ruby app with a LAMP app?  
That's ridiculous. How else can someone decide between Typo and MT  
and WP and etc?


No, you're just wrong. It makes PERFECT sense to compare the  
experience of setting up and using Application X with that of using  
Application Y if both X and Y are competitors in the same market  
(i.e., blogging software).


As I said above, you are doing nothing useful in this argument.   
Stop it.  If you care that much passionately, then run Wordpress.   
The argument is self defeating, because you are comparing apples to  
pears.  You can try this argument on a Django list and see how far  
you get.


The problem here, Scott, is that you're the one who's arguing. I  
stated an uncontroversial position -- RoR apps are harder to deploy  
than traditional LAMP apps -- and you've gone all apoplectic with  
fanboy protestations that, frankly, make no sense.


Look: I don't care. It's absolutely not important to me today, and I'm  
100% done with you. I have problems with Typo that Fred says he's  
working on, and I appreciate that. What I do NOT appreciate is your  
incessant browbeating and bombastic Ruby boosterism.


Why on earth would you need to run a second web server? That seems  
like a really bad idea, frankly, hence my annoyance that the most  
obvious question (which boils down to WTF?, essentially)  isn't  
addressed.


Then I suggest you to take that torch up with the Mongrel Mailing  
list and ask them.


If it's something that's considered a common part of a Typo install,  
then the Typo docs need to address it because it's out of the ordinary  
for weblogging software.



To Quote from http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/UnderstandingMigrations


I'll read this later. I am refreshed, however, that you've provided an  
apparently useful link.


In essence, your database has a 'version' number in it, and if  
someone adds a new model, or changes a model a migration is also  
made.  So that you can run 'rake db:migrate' to ensure your database  
is up to date and able to do what the new version intends to do.


Why is this better than just dropping the SQLite file into the tree  
after your re-install? (Hypothetically; I haven't tried it.)



Of course you'll have to reinstall your plugins and themes.




To put it mildly, that's a bit bizarre and very unfriendly to the  
user.


With the exception of plugins and themes, I find the upgrade process  
very relaxing and totally capable.


It's plugins and theme reinstallation I find bizarre.


I believe as a standard practice


Maybe for Typo. Not for anything else I use.


Remind me not to hire you as a Systems Administrator.


Based on my exposure to you here, it seems astoundingly unlikely  
you'll ever be in a position to hire anyone with my resume.


My reference here is to the need to reinstall plugins and themes, not  
standard pre-patch/pre-upgrade backups. In my career so far, my  
experience is much more defined by my own refusal to hire doctrinaire  
platform zealots.


Not to mention that is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Matrix (http://www.crcdataprotection.com/solutions/sox_compliance.asp 
)


SarBox is so often a part of blog culture.


Because clearly I don't get it, and won't get it.



This, at least, is abundantly clear.

plonk

Chet Farmer

When you've got an RV, a jet pack, and a monkey you really don't need  
much actual content  - KS





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