Show HN: Please review my new Server-Side JavaScript/CoffeeScript servers | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Please review my new Server-Side JavaScript/CoffeeScript servers

cure.willsave.me

23 pointsilaksh21 comments

From the page

> Everything is pre-installed and pre-configured. n* d., nginx already running in front of ExpressJS (site is live when you get the initial build email), mongodb, mongoskin, couchdb, running ExpressJS app, example RailwayJS blog sample already generated, redis installed (for RailwayJS), CoffeeScript installed, VIM support for CoffeeScript installed, psmisc package installed (includes commands like 'killall'), ssh port reassigned, example CoffeeScript code to access MongoDB, example CoffeeScript ExpressJS app, the most popular/recommended NPM/JavaScript packages like Vows, Async, Socket.IO, Backbone.JS, Knockout.JS.

This sentence is difficult to parse. What is n* d? Which technologies belong to what part of your product?

I'd rather have this explained with a bullet list or better yet a nice info graphic.

nod. is N_dJS.. you're right, difficult to parse. Probably can improve that. I did put a bullet list on the features page. Graphics are a great idea thanks.

Personally I didn't like your main text introduction: "Don't waste hours, days or weeks researching server-side JavaScript, cloud providers and NoSQL, and then compiling, configuring and deploying the systems from scratch. Get a preconfigured virtual server with a running sample application powered by Express.JS."

Primarily the first sentence was a huge turn-off for me. Researching your technology and understanding it is never a waste of time. And Server-Side JavaScript is not some magic bullet where you need to know nothing but can write amazing applications. It is a tricky environment with some great power and massive 'gotchas'.

Personally I think you should either remove reference to research or fully embrace the word. A sales point could be more along the lines of: "Popular server-side JavaScript frameworks already connected and configured to allow you to jump directly into a working example. Great for bootstrapping your research project or spinning up servers for your already written application!" But, I have no silver-tongue so take my wording advice with caution. ;)

I suppose another way to put it is that there are too many negative and "hostile" words ("waste", "don't", "no", etc). Your suggestion manages to avoid all of those.

Wow I really appreciate that! Do you want a link somewhere crediting you with writing that copy?

heh, no, that is fine. It cost me nothing and I am passing the savings onto you. ;)

Page design feedback: You should make the "Free Trial" link more prominent (make it a button with a bright background). Bump up the line-height on all the text; it looks too crowded.

Features list needs to give more specifics about RAM, disk space, bandwidth, etc., not just a list of pre-installed software (especially things like Express and Backbone that are trivial for me to bundle with my app when I upload it).

The bullet point about "We don't make you go through a proxy" is useful. You could also brag that WebSockets work—last I checked, this is a big drawback on Heroku.

Is there a reason you refer to Node as "n*d." on the front page, and "nod." on the features page?

Joyent wants a signed license agreement to say "N_de.JS" anywhere unless they decide your use of the trademark is "nominative" which is subject to their interpretation. They are giving out free licenses now but assuming revenue for the N_de.JS market increases to be more significant, one has to assume that there will be more and more pressure to extract a greater share of the revenues by using these license agreements to either stifle competition or to pull in fees. Especially since one of their main businesses seems to be directly competing with many of those services. So I'm not in a rush to sign a license with them and therefore just avoid using the term for now. It does look silly though so I may have to rethink that and consider this free (for now?) license thing.

Also thanks a lot for checking it out and the feedback. I made the CoffeeScript logo link to your book page.

Their trademark policy is pretty controlling for open source software http://nodejs.org/trademark-policy.pdf I guess we need a name for the unrestricted version, like Iceweasel in Debian.

IANAL, but you can use node.js as long as you make it clear you are not associated with the project and joyent holds the trademark.

I can see this being valuable for developers who aren't interested in learning how to configure / tweak a VPS themselves (and I do know a few of those); not sure how big that market is, but there's definitely a market. Out of curiosity, is there any open-source solution out there (i.e: configurable script) to automatically pre-configure a blank VPS out-of-the box with a list of frameworks / libraries - something like EC2 images, but for a vanilla ubuntu server for example ?

I know nodejitsu has some stuff along those lines, but I don't think its anywhere near as convenient as my image.

I also think, although I would have to check, that Linode probably has some kind of N_deJS stackscripts that someone made. Again, I doubt that it is as fully configured or as convenient as my service, and that will cost you almost twice as much, since Linode only has 512MB instances (which for many sites and applications I think is way more than you need with N_de) which cost $19.95/mo. Also that won't give you any kind of DNS setup which I am doing for you just by typing the machine name in (probably not a big deal for a lot of people but it does make it simpler).

Also, I am actually hoping people who know their way around a shell terminal _will_ want this. The idea is to avoid always having to build Node and configure Nginx and reassign ssh and some things that you really don't need/want to do from scratch every time unless you feel like you need to prove you know how or something.

Question: I see a lot of people typing in machine names, for example, someone typed in jesus(.willsave.me), but most of those people did not actually sign up. Did you change your mind for some reason?

I really appreciate everyone's feedback so far.

I think if no one takes jesus.willsave.me I may set that up myself tomorrow or something. LOL.

on your features page you've mispelt node, "nod v0.6.2 (via git)"

Edit: just noticed comments below about licencing of N_de etc etc, so I assume this is the reason

I'm missing some contact information.

Can you contact me through the orange button in the upper right? I thought that would simplify things for everyone.

Sorry, my bad, ghostery removed the button.

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