southpolesteve

Thanks!

The AWS UI and console are great for <10 functions. 100 functions... not so much. It becomes necessary to automate things and Apex provides that. If you are just getting started, I'm not sure it is "better". But if your entire stack is lambda funcs its almost necessary to keep your sanity.

That is the best part! It is cheaper! We had a node service that went from $2500/mo to $400/mo just by switching form Ec2 to Lambda. That is the most apples to apples comparison I can give you. Other services were split up or rewritten, but honestly my gut feeling tells me they are costing 10x-50x less.

IMO Autoscaling ec2 instances to daily traffic is not a trivial problem and you'll never get the granularity you can with Lambda

Apex is totally awesome. Especially if you are just concerned with Lambda. But if your looking for something that integrates with both Lambda and API gateway check out the tool I wrote: https://github.com/bustlelabs/shep

There is nothing wrong with using lambda to synchronously respond to user facing API requests. It actually works really well and I would highly recommend it. Were doing it in production at ~15 million calls/day.

I built a tool to do just that: https://github.com/bustlelabs/shep

It currently only supports node. If you are looking for just lambda, Apex is an awesome tool. But for us we needed end to end integration with API gateway and I wasn't happy with any of the other tools out there.

This makes me think Github doesn't get it. Emoji comments are often used because there is no better way to interact with an issue/PR. What we need are better issue management tools. Polls, voting, triage tools, etc. Instead we got an easier way to post emojis. Feels more like a "look we have reactions like slack!!!" gimmick rather than a properly designed response to user requests for features.

So for Shepherd (https://github.com/bustlelabs/shepherd) we copy in an env.js file on deployment to lambda that has all the env variables. Stage Variables are good, but there is a gotcha. If you are using them to establish connections (external service, DB, etc) you only get access to them inside the function body. Might not be the biggest issue for some people but I like to have everything loaded and connections established when the lambda function is loaded by the AWS parent process rather than on actual function execution.

Apex is awesome if you just need AWS Lambda. Its not so great if you need integration with API Gateway. Because of AWS's quirky IAM roles and permissions, you really need a tool that links everything up properly during deployment.

I'm working on something similar: https://github.com/bustlelabs/shepherd

It aims to be simpler than Serverless, but still maintain great integration with API Gateway.

Lots of cool project in the space right now! Check em all out. I'll be sure to add yours to Shepherd's "Other Project" section.

Check out murfie.com. They will take your CDs

Yes, several production services including one serving an API and another a server side rendered JS app. API gateway + Lambda has some rough edges but the scalability has been great.

I actually built this exact thing myself last year: https://github.com/southpolesteve/deploy_button

Here is a repo that has the button included: https://github.com/southpolesteve/lucre

Obviously I never really promoted it and I'm glad to see that Heroku built something official. But maybe someone far in the future will see this comment and remember :)

Quick edit: Here is the announcement email to the local railer's group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Mad-Railers/-1MkbbkX... To be clear, I have no reason to believe that Heroku used anything I made. Just wanted to self promote a bit.

I've personally helped 4 people setup Postgres on a recent model macbook with OSX Mountain Lion for Rails dev in the last 6 months. Every one has been terrible. Issue with sockets, issues with file permissions, issues with previous attempted installs, issues with setting up database users. Postgres.app just works and it is awesome.

The food at the South Pole was actually quite good. On par or better than most local dinner food I can get around my house. Our luck with veggies was not so good. Depends a lot of flights, weather, timing, etc.

I've spent time in Antarctica, specifically at the South Pole and not during the winter. Even in the summer months, there is a lot of drinking.

Antarctica was a great experience and I would do it all over again, but honestly the novelty wears off after only a couple weeks. McMurdo might be a bit better since it is on the coast and has a much larger community. The South Pole is just cold, white, dry and flat in every direction. Feels a bit like mild sensory deprivation after a while. There is not much to do besides work, drink, and sleep.

What timing! I just released the first version of a rails engine that automatically builds APIs to match Ember Data. It also uses active model serializers. Check it out here: https://github.com/southpolesteve/api_engine

I would love to get some feedback on the initial version. I will definitely be implementing more of the OP's spec this weekend.

I have been on that t-mobile plan for the last year with an unlocked Galaxy Nexus. It has been awesome. Speed is actually better than it was on AT&T.

I did something similar last year: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3216323

I met a ton of great people and everyone was extremely accommodating. I hope you gets lots of offers. I think I ended up with ~70 invitations.

There is a startup that does this! www.murfie.com

Disclosure: I work for murfie

I believe that is totally legit. You should check out Murfie.com

Or you could just get a sim from Straight Talk or T-mobile and be free of contracts forever! Then just buy the Nexus 4 directly from google

It's actually poor UX for desktop users too. It is possible to slide the buttons with a mouse drag and have them fail to change state. I see this behavior on many sites trying to optimize for mobile, but it degrades the desktop UX.

"The investors are investing in us as innovators and our ability to execute on a vision. Being open source means that our users are our best collaborators. Open source hardware is a viable business model!"

"$80,000 and regular employee benefits"

Another thought:

Seems like what App.net should be doing is designing and promoting an open protocol for feeds and then become global indexer of those feeds. Of course, Google might give them some trouble. I am sure Google is chomping at the bit to index the next evolution of the web.

"App.net has the potential to be something more fundamental, like the web (HTTP) or email (SMTP)"

To do this, wouldn't you need to abandon the centralized server? Neither of these services are paid products (the hosting is paid).

A big reason that services like twitter, Facebook, and linkedin work at all is that they are centralized. Value is derived from all the accounts and data being in one place. Arguably THE reason that HTTP and SMTP work is that they are decentralized. Anyone can implement the protocol on any server.

I don't really see how app.net can straddle this divide. From what I can tell, the current aim is to be a centralized service that has an api. That still sounds to me like a paid twitter with a less restrictive api. Seems to me the focus needs to actually be on an open protocol. One that any server can implement to display a feed[1].

[1] RSS? Maybe with some more bells and whistle.

The technical implementation is interesting, but from a usability perspective, I found these icons to be pretty terrible

I wouldn't say they _created_ any money. Took investor's money? Yes

100% agree. I did this myself a while back.