Ioncube for Rails?
Posted by Martin Wood | Filed under Business, Ruby, mISV
Having just completed my first mISV product, I’m already starting to think about potential new projects.
Despite Datafeed Studio being written in PHP, it is fair to say it is not my programming language of choice.
Datafeed Studio is a web application that is installed by the end user on their server, thus it made sense to go for for the language that has the biggest support amongst web hosting services.
Of course, now that mod_rails / Passenger has been released, hopefully it wont be too long before Ruby does some catching up in the widespread availability and ease of deployment stakes. I understand that major web hosting providers such as Dreamhost are already offering support.
The second reason I chose PHP is to do with script protection. There are several PHP solutions out there to encode scripts to prevent piracy such as Zend Guard, Code Lock and IonCube (I opted for the latter) but seemingly none for the Ruby world?
My previous Rails projects have been SAAS based so I’ve never had to worry about this - but I have a mISV idea that like Datafeed Studio, would require the customer to install the software on their server, but the lack of script encoding / protection does unfortunately put me off using Rails in this instance.
Has anybody else been in this position? What did you do? Am I worrying too much about piracy concerns?
Rails 2.0 application checker
Posted by Martin Wood | Filed under Programming, Ruby
Now that the first release candidate of Rails 2.0 has been announced, what better time to check if your existing Rails app might need some TLC before the upgrade?
Enter r2check, a small tool which does some regular expression searches against your codebase for things that we know are changing.
Functional testing of a Rails app with Selenium
Posted by Martin Wood | Filed under Programming, Ruby, Testing, Web
How to use the Selenium test tool for functional testing of a Ruby on Rails and Ajax application.
Link : Automate acceptance tests with Selenium
Definitely one to add to every web developers toolbox in 2006.
Rails Deployment: Lessons Learned from James Duncan Davidson
Posted by Martin Wood | Filed under Programming, Ruby
James Duncan Davidson has published an excellent essary detailing Rails deployment issues. Jam-packed with practical tips.
* Should I use CGI or FastCGI?
* Should I use lighty or Apache httpd?
* If Apache, which freaking version?
* And how do I configure mod_fastcgi with Apache?
* Should I let the webserver manage fcgi processes or spawn them externally?
* And what’s this SCGI thing?
* And what’s this SwitchTower thing?
* What version of MySQL is the server running?
Link : Real Lessons for Rails Deployment
Hyper Enthusiasts - Java = Ruby?
Posted by Martin Wood | Filed under Java, Professional, Programming, Ruby
Excellent article from Bruce Eckel covering the dangers of “language-love”, a sure sign of an amateur programmer.
The Java hyper-enthusiasts have left the building, leaving a significant contingent of Java programmers behind, blinking in the bright lights without the constant drumbeat of boosterism.