

Heroku Node.js Support (experimental) - jmonegro
http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/4/28/node_js_support_experimental/

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ique
This comes at a perfect time for me, I've been playing around a lot with
Node.js lately and I've been looking around for a way to host it. I don't want
to pay $20 a month for a VPS for an experimental fun-application, and
<http://elusivehippo.com/> just tells me that I'm not looking for some droids.

Not only is real-time application support a huge step, but the way Heroku has
listened to its customers here to implement Node.js support is amazing.

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samdk
<http://prgmr.com/> doesn't have space available right now, but they have VPS
plans starting at $5/month and I've heard good things about them from people
on HN.

~~~
bretthoerner
Run by one of our very own: <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lsc>

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cmelbye
Why don't they just remove the 30 second limit on web request execution time?
I'd rather use Ruby/EventMachine than a complicated separate setup using both
Ruby and node.js running on separate Heroku stacks.

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jmtulloss
That's really cool. I think node.js is one of the most exciting new projects
out there, and getting support for it into the cloud means uptake can be that
much faster.

~~~
swannodette
I'm excited about it. But I think the verdict's out on whether a medium to
large Node.js program will not be a steaming spaghetti shaped pile of
callbacks. Nothing I've seen coming from the Node.js community seems to
address the fact that debugging/refactoring callback heavy code is hellish.
Pretty please point me to literature/code that shows otherwise.

For small nuggets of async goodness Node.js looks great.

~~~
tlrobinson
I suspect we'll see people building better abstractions on top of the raw
callback APIs Node provides. "Promises" (similar to deferreds/futures), um,
promise to help with this.

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thegoleffect
I think Promises were removed recently.

~~~
tlrobinson
Correct, but they can still be implemented on top of the callback based APIs.

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devinus
They already are: <http://github.com/kriszyp/node-promise>

~~~
xal
promises need to be build into the language and all libraries have to be build
with promises in mind for this to work. Look at io-lang's @ syntax or for a
slightly different ( much better ) take, look at go's channels.

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BrianHammond
The big question is if Heroku will suddenly support a fairly large number of
long-lived connections to a Node.js hosted app, and how pricing would work.
Developing real-time apps and custom servers are how Node.js really shines. A
WebSockets module took only a few hours to develop for instance.

