Ask HN: Am I crazy to port my Rails app to PHP?

As some commentars said, choose the language/framework that suits the problem.

That said, I have experienced and heard that the time made up by using Rails/Ruby, is much less than the time it takes to customize a Rails app to get it to do what you want. Especially when there's a lot of customization. What I like about PHP and frameworks like CodeIgnitor, is that customization is dead easy. You only write code for what you want to achieve, you don't need to work around the framework's preset functionality.

Short answer, it depends. A lot of customization, use PHP, something that fits with Ruby/Rails, use that.

Definately try http://heroku.com. They have an excellent free plan that is perfect for smaller projects and development.

Also, if you use git, it's really easy to deploy an app by just pushing up to Heroku.

You could try out webfaction.com; It offers a control panel where you can add as much apps as you want (including Django, RoR, static PHP, Worpress, etc.). The only 'real' limitation you have is memory usage. I have about 15 different apps running on the smallest webfaction acocunt and it works great; comes cheap too and you don't have to update it because it's a virtual server but it is maintained by webfaction (not your version of RoR, but the system itself). If you take the cheapest package the price is between $5.50 and $9.50 a month depending on how long you want to use it.

If it's a hobby app, no, you're not crazy, you're fine :)

Oh, there are already many discussion/tutorial sites about yo-yoing. I don't intend to replace them, but to offer something they don't: a single place to coherently store pictures of, and more importantly, data about, your yoyo collection. Most of the message boards allow photo uploads, and you can always write descriptions in the posts, but that data is scattered.

I have thought some about montization (mostly in the context of "If this thing grows, how will I pay for hosting beyond my own personal/hobby threshold?"), and have two ideas:

1) fremium - subscriptions for the "serious" collector (more data fields, etc.)

2) ads from yoyo manufacturers/organizations (there aren't many, hence I don't think AdSense would really draw much revenue; plus, I actually have a few contacts at Duncan)

If I had to pick one of those, I'd rather pick #2 - I can't imagine this site, as I currently plan to build it, would add enough value to justify subscriptions.

Anyway, if you want to pick it up again, I recommend: - http://www.theyo.com/yoyo/ and http://www.theyostore.com/ - http://www.yo-yoing.com/news/ - http://www.yoyonation.com - http://yoyowiki.org