Comment by sjs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sjs | Hacker News Reader

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Try to instruct a noob on configuring Apache for vhosts or adding users to mysql then come back and tell me the deployment story for LAMP is so good.

Node.js wins for deployment if you ask me. Node.js + riak handily beats the pants off of the LAMP stack. It's so easy I'll tell you how to do it right now:

    1. Install node, ./configure && make && make install
    2. Install riak, make all rel && mv rel/riak /usr/local && export PATH="/usr/local/riak/bin:$PATH"
    3. Install your app: scp -r remote:/my/app /web
    4. Install dependencies: cd /web/app && npm install
    5. Run your app: node /web/app/do/something/cool.js

Back to my coffee.

(I'm being somewhat facetious and these instructions don't get you startup services and such, but I do believe that Node.js stacks are much simpler than traditional stacks and easier for devs that have to wear the sysadmin hat too)

I like Node, but... really? You're saying that, for noobs, compiling programs on the command line is easier than copying a few Apache lines?

Noobs can't do what you just outlined; they'll be puzzled the first time one of the commands fail (missing compiler, failed dependencies, whatever).

They'll be puzzled when they copy and paste something but their vhost still doesn't work because they didn't, say, enable vhosts in httpd.conf in the first place.

If they can install and configure Apache on a remote server, they can install and run node. I don't think it requires any more skill to copy and paste different commands into the console and you don't have to edit any configs or ask questions like "what distro? does your distro configure apache for vhosts out of the box? do you have an httpd.conf or vhost.enabled? run nano and hit ctrl-o to "write out" the file..."

Honestly though I don't think noobs do these things anyway. They will just ftp stuff into a directory on their host if they're using PHP. If they're using node I think the easiest deployment scenario is doing a git push. So practically speaking PHP is still the easiest for a clueless Windows noob to use.

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