Is it possible to offer and use Ruby without also having to give the customer shell or telnet access?

For Perl and PHP scripts, the customer doesn't need shell/telnet. What about Ruby?

Thanks in advance.

LAIG

Would you yourself expect shell access if you were the customer using it?

Cant think of a reason why shell access would be needed, but I dont use ruby on rails, and at the end of the day, surely the customer can just email you if they need shell access, and you could decided on a case by case basis?

My question stems from my lack of knowledge of how Ruby works. I was told you need to use the command line to use it and then told by someone else that you don't.

So let me rephrase.. can Ruby be used without needing shell access??

thank you.

Ruby is an OO language. Ruby on Rails is a framework built using Ruby. Using Ruby you don't need shell access, but to install the Ruby on Rails framework you do. I don't think there is a front end to set up RoR.

Ruby is an OO language. Ruby on Rails is a framework built using Ruby. Using Ruby you don't need shell access, but to install the Ruby on Rails framework you do. I don't think there is a front end to set up RoR.

i can second that, you need the command line to get rails going, i'm trying to learn it and its somewhat confusing.

i'll figure it out.

You could probably offer RoR without shell access, but since most tutorials depend on you having on shell access, that is what people are going to want. I don't think your RoR hosting services would sell very well.

I'm not talking about Ruby on Rails :-) Just plain Ruby.

Er, how many people do you have asking for just Ruby? It's not really that popular a language by itself (i.e. name an application or website written in just Ruby).

Er, how many people do you have asking for just Ruby? It's not really that popular a language by itself (i.e. name an application or website written in just Ruby).

Whether it's a popular language is a moot point. My question (and a simple one at that) was whether it could be used without shell/telnet access. I don't understand why I can't get a simple, straightforward answer.

Now going directly to Ruby forums, which I should have done in the first place.

LAIG

Whether it's a popular language is a moot point. My question (and a simple one at that) was whether it could be used without shell/telnet access. I don't understand why I can't get a simple, straightforward answer.
It's a vague question... There is no straightforward answer, but if you want the simple answer, it's yes.

Please post the a link to the thread in the Ruby forums in case other people find this thread and are interested in a more detailed answer.

A typical Rails project looks like this:

railsapp_base_directory
--app
----->models
----->controllers
----->views
---(bunch of other directories snip'd)
--public

You need to be able to symlink the public directory to a directory on your webserver - railsapp_base should not be publically accessible. (You can also use .htaccess directives.)

You also need to allow .htaccess for that directory via AllowOverride.

The way RailsPlayground does it is that they let you install an sample Rails application into a subdomain or directory, and then you just overwrite the app, public, vendor, etc directories with your application - it does the symlinks and provides a custom .htaccess for your app.

I was able to modify DTC to use Rails pretty easily, although I still have to do it on a case-by-case basis. If I had a bigger clientbase - right now, I'm only serving my software development clients - I might set a script up to do it, which ought to be relatively trivial.

Incidentally, you might be interested in my new Ruby news aggregator: written in Rails, no less. http://coolruby.com/

Take it easy,

Dave

The bit that worries me is "My question stems from my lack of knowledge of how Ruby works."

Offering services to customers that you have no idea how they work, is asking for trouble.

Without pretty good knowledge of the product you are offering (or better, in-depth knowledge) you wont know how to protect them, or improve your services, or even what you are offering......

Most of the people here don't have a clue about Ruby - I'm guessing because it doesn't come preconfigured in CPanel.

Anyway, asking if Ruby needs shell access is like asking if you need shell access for C. If you're writing command line apps then you need shell access, if you're writing CGI scripts then you don't. In the same vein, you need shell access to run a command line Ruby program, but not for a Rails app.

http://tryruby.hobix.com/ is a way to use ruby without the command line :) but I doubt that's what your client is asking.

Honestly the best thing to do may be to refer your client to someone who does know a lot about Ruby, such as www.textdrive.com or www.planetargon.com

If you're only looking for Ruby support, mod_ruby isn't all that different from mod_php.

Take it easy,

Dave