Heroku (was Re: Lies in education [was Re: The "loop and a half"])

[Ben Bacarisse]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet at bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 10:14 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet at bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>>>> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> I abbreviated that down to nothing, but since you ask, here's a really
>>>>> REALLY simple run-down of how to use Heroku:
>>>>
>>>> I think I see what you mean now.  You meant no configuration is needed
>>>> because you use (or buy?) a cloud service that's all set up for it
>>>> already?
>>>
>>> Correct - because the setup needed is completely generic.
>>>
>>>> From this and other posts I think the position is that I do need to do
>>>> some server configuration (and essentially install a proxy server) to
>>>> run Python web applications on my typical Apache set-up.  And I would
>>>> then have to shop around for suitable hosting that is already set up for
>>>> running them.
>>>>
>>>> <snip instructions>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.  That's not quite what I was after but it's good to know how to
>>>> do that should I want to that later.
>>>
>>> Yep, it's not too hard.
>>>
>>> And that's why it's cleaner to work with Python than PHP. To use
>>> custom URL routing in PHP, you have to use custom server rules; to use
>>> custom URL routing in Python, you use  "@app.route(...)" lines inside
>>> your app, and perfectly standard server rules.
>>
>> That's one way to put it.  Another is that to use Python I need to buy a
>> new service that is already configured.  If that's the way it's done,
>> fine, but this sub-thread started with someone being surprised by the
>> success of PHP.
>
> Thing is, that's exactly the same for both languages these days. You
> can get cheap (even zero-dollar) hosting that's preconfigured to be
> able to support either. There USED to be a difference, and everyone's
> acknowledged this - PHP built up some inertia - but there's now no
> real reason for it other than "it's popular, therefore people use it".

That's good to know, but of course the current success of PHP is based
exactly on what used to be the case.  It will take a while for the
inherent inertia of people, skills, processes and so on to be overcome.

-- 
Ben.