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How I Built a Side Project

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Re: How I Built a Side Project

#21

Post by mcone »

overcast wrote: post #20
mcone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, but Heroku has a much lower barrier of entry for people who are just starting out. You don't have to worry about configuring and maintaining a Linux box. Some people are willing to pay a premium to avoid those headaches and get back to what they really want to be doing: application development.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

I'm a former Linode employee, so you don't have to sell me on the advantages of the VPS. :) I think we need to remember that people new to programming don't know about all of the available tools and services. Costs could have been reduced by using a VPS, but they also could have been reduced without becoming a *nix expert. For instance, the author talked about buying SSL certificates, something that comes free with a CloudFlare account. They could have also used a CDN to reduce the load on their dynos.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#22

Post by jacquesm »

overcast wrote: post #20
mcone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, but Heroku has a much lower barrier of entry for people who are just starting out. You don't have to worry about configuring and maintaining a Linux box. Some people are willing to pay a premium to avoid those headaches and get back to what they really want to be doing: application development.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

> Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

This is one of the reasons why web security is as bad as it is.

Even so heroku is not the right choice for this, way too expensive.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#23

Post by sumsted »

This goes along with a good site I saw mentioned in comments yesterday, https://www.goodui.org/. If your site was still up, I'd sign up. You might even go cheaper with something like a shared hosting solution, like webfaction. it's cheap, it's easy to setup stacks, you'd have plenty of space, and you don't have to manage your server.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#24

Post by wuliwong »

overcast wrote: post #20
mcone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, but Heroku has a much lower barrier of entry for people who are just starting out. You don't have to worry about configuring and maintaining a Linux box. Some people are willing to pay a premium to avoid those headaches and get back to what they really want to be doing: application development.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

My experience as a one man operation is that you always have to make trade offs between building something yourself (especially if you actually need to learn a new skill-set to do it) and using someone else's solution. Honestly, in general this is essentially always the debate even at my regular job.

For me, Heroku has always been the choice over AWS or Digital Ocean. I haven't had it block me from doing anything I've wanted to do and my monthly bill is around $10 (for multiple sites). For my projects, I could never make a solid argument that moving away from Heroku would actually change the product for the end user in any meaningful way. And with the greater amount of time and energy I would need to focus on a non-Heroku server-side, it would likely slow progress.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#25

Post by dyladan »

userium wrote: post #2

Author here, happy to get feedback!

Please don't do that with drop shadows. The combination of the non-3d image and the 3d drop shadow makes for a really disconcerting distortion effect. Are the corners of the image curled up or not? A simple 2-3 px drop shadow on the right and bottom edges would look much better imo.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#26

Post by overcast »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
overcast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

> Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it. This is one of the reasons why web security is as bad as it is. Even so heroku is not the right choice for this, way too expensive.

That is not relevant to this discussion, but I agree security should be a priority when developing anything.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#28

Post by overcast »

wuliwong wrote: post #24
overcast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

My experience as a one man operation is that you always have to make trade offs between building something yourself (especially if you actually need to learn a new skill-set to do it) and using someone else's solution. Honestly, in general this is essentially always the debate even at my regular job. For me, Heroku has always been the choice over AWS or Digital Ocean. I haven't had it block me from doing anything I'v…

Honestly, I don't really care what you use if it fits your needs. The main point here is that the author shut down his project, because they were spending $250 a month, to operate a very basic setup. Pick your favorite host, but a car payment to do so, is ludicrous.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#29

Post by wuliwong »

mcone wrote: post #21
overcast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$225 premium!? I mean come on. The article focuses a lot on the learning aspect of these exercises, and setting up your own services should really be a part of it. Especially for a one man operation. Typing apt-get install mongo / mysql / rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.

I'm a former Linode employee, so you don't have to sell me on the advantages of the VPS. :) I think we need to remember that people new to programming don't know about all of the available tools and services. Costs could have been reduced by using a VPS, but they also could have been reduced without becoming a *nix expert. For instance, the author talked about buying SSL certificates, something that comes free with a…

I've had a site running on Heroku that has 200-300 visitors a day for almost 2 years. I'm still on the free dyno package. I wonder if I am just below some tipping point where I would need to bump up to the non-free stuff. My site runs fine and there are never spikes of traffic, it's pretty constant all throughout a 24 hour period.

Re: How I Built a Side Project

#30

Post by estefan »

userium wrote: post #2

Author here, happy to get feedback!

I remember scanning your site when it was on the front page a few weeks ago. It just looked like a checklist to me. I wouldn't have thought you could charge for it. Perhaps the idea was just a bit too static to be able to turn into an app and charge for?
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