libaws VS dockerfile-rails

i print the error along with file and line number every time i return it. clunky, but it works.

in fact i print file and line with every log message.

https://github.com/nathants/libaws/blob/87fb45b4cae20abd1bb1...

cloud is so good now it’s hard to justify not doing something bespoke. ec2 spot is insanely cheaper than turnkey cicd, and better in almost every way.

i’m delighted to pay 30% over infra cost for convenience, but not 500%. and it better actually be convenient, not just have a good landing page and sales team.

this month i learned localzones have even better spot prices. losangeles-1 is half the spot price of us-west-2.

for a runner, do something like this, but react to an http call instead of a s3 put[1].

for a web ui do something like this[2].

s3, lambda, and ec2 spot are a perfect fit for cicd and a lot more.

1. https://github.com/nathants/libaws/tree/91b1c27fc947e067ed46...

2. https://github.com/nathants/aws-exec/tree/e68769126b5aae0e35...

like linux, cloud is a lot to learn, but worth it.

like linux, cloud is best kept simple, or it can become brittle and confusing.

like linux, cloud has a lot of cool things like zfs, that should be appreciated but rarely used.

like linux, using go makes your life a lot easier. the aws go sdk is the documentation.

like linux, you have to learn a lot and then find the core utility you actually care about. for me it is:

https://github.com/nathants/libaws

the good new is, for the 95% of projects that can tolerate it, aws the good parts are actually both simple and easy[1].

it’s hard to find things you can’t build on s3, dynamo, lambda, and ec2.

if either compliance or a 5% project demand it, complicated solutions should be explored.

1. https://github.com/nathants/libaws

i also wanted a good cli for aws, and built one:

https://github.com/nathants/libaws

companies like fly are fantastic.

they provide a good service, and they put market pressure on aws.

cool transition and fun writeup!

for low, intermittent traffic sites, go on lambda might be a better comparison:

https://github.com/nathants/libaws/tree/master/examples/simp...

lambda + s3. add ec2 spot if you need it.

just make sure you understand how billing works. mostly it’s just egress bandwidth is expensive.

do something like this:

https://github.com/nathants/aws-gocljs

or with less opinions:

https://github.com/nathants/libaws/tree/master/examples/simp...

welcome to cloud, glhf!

aws ux for retaining both hair and sanity.

https://github.com/nathants/libaws

build and scale systems with artificial load on aws! scaling the load testing will be just as interesting as scaling the system under test.

start with low bottlenecks, ie a cluster of c6i.large ec2 spot. how fast can you do this? have fast can you scale that? ec2 and s3 is all you need to build anything.

use ec2 spot, avoid network egress, avoid cross region/zone traffic, create and destroy ec2 instances as needed instead of letting them sit idle. you could grow system scaling intution for the price of your streaming subscriptions.

start with something like this:

https://github.com/nathants/libaws/tree/master/examples/comp...

maybe mess around with public datasets on aws, just make sure to be in the correct region to avoid data egress.

welcome systems friend. one accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions. scaling is fun!

aws has too many knobs, presumably to satisfy the union of the needs of all the enterprise customers. that said, lambda+s3+dynamodb+ec2 are pretty good once you tape over all the knobs that aren't needed. i work with them like this[1].

these days i build on aws and r2. aws for the nuts and bolts, r2 for high bandwidth egress. it's a perfect match.

1. https://github.com/nathants/libaws

If you want to automatically generate Dockerfiles for more versions of Rails (not just the latest) that detect OS packages that need to be installed from gems present in your Gemfile, check out https://github.com/fly-apps/dockerfile-rails

You can install it in your rails app by running:

1. bundle add dockerfile-rails

2. rails g dockerfile

> I felt bad

Don't. I can honestly say that I didn't write this post targeting HN. I'll go further... this post wasn't meant for people who are unlikely to use https://github.com/fly-apps/dockerfile-rails#overview. I recently added some features to that gem whose usage may not be intuitively obvious. I wrote this post to explain some of the motivation for those features.

I don't know how to mark posts as not intended for HN (and truth be told, if there was such a feature, I'd be inclined to overuse it). I don't know where else I should have posted this content, but I'm not sure I would be inclined to move it. In any case, this post, as written, serves a purpose for me. Somebody not you and not me felt it belonged here. We can both second guess that decision. Either way, there is no reason for either of us to feel bad.

Did you try migrating with this guide? https://fly.io/docs/rails/getting-started/migrate-from-herok...

The issues you ran into with older versions of Rails was probably because the Dockerfile that `fly launch` generated was for new versions of Rails. We switched to https://github.com/rubys/dockerfile-rails to streamline Dockerfile generation and support older versions of Rails.

If you try it again and run into issues you can open an issue at https://github.com/rubys/dockerfile-rails/issues or post in https://community.fly.io and somebody will help get that sorted out.

The more versions of Rails we can deploy the better!

At the moment Rails is focused on simplicity/readability. I've got a gem that I'm proposing (and DHH is evaluating) that adds caching as an option: https://github.com/rubys/dockerfile-rails#overview

even though the article does not go deep into multistage builds Fly.io does provide cookbooks and even a link to a Rails generator there.