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Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

cron.io

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Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#61

Post by endlessvoid94 »

neilbowers wrote: post #24
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #14

Love it. I'm a big believer in choosing the right vocabulary. Half of the fogginess in communicating ideas comes from bad vocabulary, and matching that vocabulary to your user base. For example, "signal" is a great word that describes the behavior. "Delegate" is also decent. "Dictionary" is not a good word. If you don't know that a dictionary is a key value store, it's not very obvious. Same with "hash"; unless you'v…

Since you're being pedantic, the word you were looking for was "pedantry", not pedanticism :-)

AH dammit, you're right.

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#62

Post by fatalerrorx3 »

Interesting idea...however, in my case I keep most of my crons in a directory not accessible through a browser, so that someone can't accidentally come across and run one manually. Am I the only one that does this? I also have crons that run to perform maintenance/clean-up and backup on files/databases (either daily or weekly) and it sound like this service wouldn't work in that case, unless the scripts were changed to a server-side language like PHP and then put in a publicly accessible directory.

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#63

Post by coenhyde »

fatalerrorx3 wrote: post #62

Interesting idea...however, in my case I keep most of my crons in a directory not accessible through a browser, so that someone can't accidentally come across and run one manually. Am I the only one that does this? I also have crons that run to perform maintenance/clean-up and backup on files/databases (either daily or weekly) and it sound like this service wouldn't work in that case, unless the scripts were changed…

You can use basic auth to protect your scripts from anyone who shouldn't access them. eg

http://user:pass@example.com/script

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#64

Post by baby »

icebraining wrote: post #55
baby wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are a lot of free cron service using a real interface and not an API.

An API is more flexible. For example, the code being called could itself adjust the job parameters to fit its needs dynamically. Or you could have a pre-packaged solution that the user can install on a shared hosting server that automatically sets up the cron job.

But from what I got there is only an API and no simple interface, which is everything but practical. The logical steps would be to make an interface first, then develop an API.

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#65

Post by meiji »

18pfsmt wrote: post #53
meiji wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the problem with that is, what happens when the atom machine dies. Or the ISP cuts you off? People outsource services not because they can't make a cheap version themselves but because it can be a hassle.

Ok. What happens when the 3rd party service is acquired and shuts down, or shuts down due to lack of funds? I've got several machines that have been running non-stop for 3-5 years, and I've had several services I've relied on that have shutdown after being acquired, so there seems to be a need for a backup solution either way. People that derive their income from providing 3rd party services seem to have a bias in fa…

Nothing to do with work. I've been "in technology" for my entire life and professionally for the last 18 years. I have learned that whilst homebrew is satisfying an itch, sometimes there are people who do things better. I've had companies go bankrupt on me and that's why I have contingency plans in place to remedy things, but I sometimes like the fact I can pay someone to do a specific thing for me better than I could do it myself (or at least as well). I'm past the point in my life where it seems useful to spend my time doing something because I can, I'd much rather spend that time on something else (other work, family, friends, hobbies) if there's a viable way that makes good business sense.

p.s. Flattered you care ;)

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#66

Post by 18pfsmt »

18pfsmt wrote: post #59
citricsquid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you're replying to, but someone that disagrees with you. I run multiple servers, at this minute there's 8 web servers online and 1 mysql server. Each server has a different purpose, some are long term and some are short term (taken offline after purpose served). Having to manage the cron jobs running on each server is a pain, having 8 servers all running different things is fine if you have the tim…

>Having to manage the cron jobs running on each server is a pain Agreed, that's why you would use a single, cheap Atom box sitting under your desk managing all of your cron jobs. >spending an hour to save $20 isn't worth it This isn't saving $20, it is saving $240 per year , so having your own hardware is break-even for year one. Year two is essentially free. >it's the same reason I use Postmark [...] for my email Em…

The only reason I'm putting these thoughts out there is because I want to understand why things do not work out the way that makes sense to me. When people just down-vote, I can't understand what I am getting wrong. Please help explain what I'm missing, it would help a lot, thanks.

Re: Show HN: Cron.io - Sharing a by-product. Should this be a full service?

#70

Post by fagatini »

coenhyde wrote: post #16
eps wrote: post #15

Would creating 60 jobs polling the same URL at 1 min intervals translate to the site getting polled every second? Or is there batching/coalescing of the same-URL jobs?

The crons are spaced out over time. This is actually why i took so long to launch the site. I've used the prototype version of this for a long time. The app is written in node so it is incredibly fast, like destroy the internet fast. That is why email confirmations are required and accounts are limited to 5 crons each. I will add a captcha on account confirmation shortly as well.

Destroys the internet fast.
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