gem install passenger
passenger start
no preference panes to install. No Apache configuration files to update. And Passenger eliminates the need to edit /etc/hosts. To get a Rack app running, just type a single command.
passenger start
no preference panes to install. No Apache configuration files to update. And Passenger eliminates the need to edit /etc/hosts. To get a Rack app running, just type a single command.
And upgrading Passenger requires you to install a gem, then run a command, copy and paste a bunch of text into your Apache config file, and restart Apache.
* this is also a single command to get a rack app running once you have it installed
* you can easily support multiple ruby versions/gemsets (otherwise you'd need to install/compile passenger for each)
* appname.dev is easier than remembering which port all of your rails apps are running on.
* you don't have to start each app manually each time.
* Passenger supports using various gemsets very easily using the setup_load_paths.rb file in the config of your app (though multiple ruby versions still seem to be a problem).
* If you're using passenger, why do you have each app running on a different port? Using the Passenger Prefs Pane makes it trivially easy to have each app at its own appname.local URL (though, admittedly, installing an extra prefs pane, where Pow has it built in, gives bonus points to the latter).
* Same with my last point. Passenger automatically handles the booting up or apps when you access their URL in the browser, just like Pow does. Of course, I'm guessing you don't have Passenger installed this way if each app has to run on a different port.
When this finished, I got an error and it all failed: "* ERROR: Please install file-tail first: sudo gem install file-tail"…
So I did and now its supposedly running on Port 3000 except I just get a 403 error when I visit it in my browser. The docs aren't very helpful either (http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Standa...).
Update: I apparently missed the line about going to my application's root directory. I still didn't really like all the stuff that got downloaded and compiled on my machine, when all I would like to do is get started developing.
The 'file-tail' thing is actually a bug (we should no longer have a requirement on file-tail). We've already fixed it in git master 3 days ago and the fix will be released very soon.
Can you give me some more details about the 403 error? Do you see anything in the console or in the browser window that tells you more about the error?
It still seems like a lot of software and time to just start developing. What does passenger get me for developing locally that Pow doesn't? (I've never used Passenger before today).
1. Phusion Passenger is currently the most popular production server for Ruby web apps (see ruby-toolbox.com and the last NewRelic survey). Phusion Passenger Standalone is practically the same as Phusion Passenger for Nginx. It's a good thing to have the development environment match the production environment as much as possible. Phusion Passenger actually comes in 3 editions: Phusion Passenger for Apache (integrates into Apache), Phusion Passenger for Nginx (integrates into Nginx) and Phusion Passenger Standalone (can run by itself, does not require an external web server).
2. Because Standalone is based on an Nginx core it's even fit for production. According to the Pow website it uses Nack, which according to its website is not ready for production. If 'passenger start' works for you locally then you can run the same thing in production. No need to learn how Apache and Nginx works.
There are other things as well, but I have to go in a few minutes. Feel free to ask me more questions if you like.
Hypothetically speaking, it's possible to modify Phusion Passenger to not download and install Nginx. We can run on a pure-Ruby web server like WEBrick. However I guarantee you, WEBrick sucks; it's slow, buggy and leaks memory.