
Prediction: thousands of shared web hosts will have Ruby by end of 2007 - vlad

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vlad
By the end of 2007, web hosts will use the newly released CPanel 11, the most
popular control panel for linux, which has one-click installers for Ruby and
Ruby on Rails as well as Apache 2 support, and with a sudden influx of new
users, exciting things will happen.

<http://www.cpanel.net/products/cPanelandWHM/linux/cpanel11/integration.htm>

Agree?

~~~
mgorsuch
...exciting things will happen

Well, I'd like to believe that, but Dreamhost has had Ruby support for quite
some time. I figured they're about the biggest of the shared hosting
providers.

Maybe the new cPanel will make it even easier, though...

~~~
vlad
I think the "long tail" of shared hosting providers use CPanel, with no
support for ruby. Including Ruby in CPanel means every Linux host will be able
to offer it, and it also means that Ruby on Rails will become a standard, the
same way PHP is. That's a huge difference from where Rails is at today. Most
won't deploy it, but having built-in support for Perl, PHP, and Rails shows
just how important the language is, even though most people outside startups
don't use it currently.

Although, if somebody just wants a quick script, they will probably use PHP.
Ruby on Rails is more for somebody who wants to create an entire database
driven web-based application. So, maybe Ruby on Rails is a niche. What do you
think?

~~~
jamesbritt
If I just want a quick script, I'll just use Ruby without Rails. Plain erb. Or
Nitro, or Merb. There are several options for using Ruby for Web apps/sites
without having to take on the Rails stack.

Rails may be a niche tool, but it's not the only Web option for Ruby
developers.

~~~
omouse
Your cup of Kool-aid is still full?!

~~~
jamesbritt
I'm sipping. :)

When time permits I'll be looking at Scala.

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yaacovtp
Of course shared hosting will offer rails. Since it's more cpu intensive
they'll be able to force you to upgrade to a virtual/dedicated server sooner
because of violating their terms of service.

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robertgaal
Hm, I'm not so sure. Rails doesn't do that well with shared setups at the
moment.

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jward
Don't thousands of them offer it already?

~~~
vlad
Shared web hosting providers? I don't think so. I'd say in the low hundreds of
all shared web hosts do, but not thousands. And of those, very few will offer
any support. On the other hand, PHP comes with every single shared hosting
installation that exists. I don't know of one that doesn't offer PHP support
because it comes standard with... CPanel.

From PHP.net -- _"Today, PHP is being used by hundreds of thousands of
developers (estimated), and several million sites report as having it
installed."_

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mga
mediatemple has been offering ruby on rails for a while

