JSApp.US

Blog posts relating to the now-defunct JSApp.US.

JSApp.us was the first free way to host node.js applications quickly. It provided an in-browser code editor and allowed for live preview of the application and deploying applications to subdomains. It did not require that the user install anything on their computer directly.

The source code for JSApp.US can be found here: https://github.com/matthewfl/node-host

JSApp.us Shutdown

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This post is a few weeks late, however JSApp.us has been shutdown. At the time that JSapp was first released, it was the first open node.js hosting platform. It featured an easy to use web based code editor (which was extremely useful at the time as developing node.js on windows was fairly difficult and required compiling code yourself). The system also provided CNAME support as well as subdomains for quickly developing demonstrating applications. There was even a command line client which allowed for quick deployments from the command line and uploading and downloading files from ones file system.

At last, JSApp’s time has come to an end. It has seen no major updates since 2011 (source) and the state of developing Node.js applications has moved on with new API’s (that were not supported by JSAPP) as well as new compile to JavaScript languages (which were also unsupported by JSApp).

Given the abundance of alternate Node.js hosting options and the age of the system, it seems that essentially all users have already migrated off the platform, so this change is unlikely to been disruptive. The source will remain available on github if anyone interested in some of the internals, however given how dated the system is, I am assuming that there are better solutions today for nearly all aspects of the system.

jsapp screenshot

Recent downtime

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In the last 24 hours, JSApp.US was down for the majority of the time.  The problem started with a power outage at the Linode hosting facility.  This brought the server down at first.  The system then had a problem getting back up as there was a super block failure on the root file system (not the database).  Linode continued to do maintenance on the system, and it is currently my belief that there was underlying problems causing the issue.  Earlier today I was able to get back into the system, but it was having problem still booting up into the normal system.  After some more work with the lish interface and loads of reboot attempts the system is now running again.  I have tested the system to ensure that it will reboot into the correct configuration, and it seems to be ok at the moment.

npm/coffee update

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It seems to be that I have not updated this jsapp blog in a while.  If you care about getting updates you should definitely join the jsapp mailing list where I tend to be announcing new features.  https://groups.google.com/group/jsapp-us

There seems to be a few features that have happened since the last update of this blog, so I am going to try and cover them all in a list now:

  1. There is not support for using a custom subdomain, check out the deploy command
  2. There is a profile view for all users, the profile can be edited using the profile command
  3. Files can be made public for other users to include into their own projects, to do so use the files command and click public
  4. There is a new jsapp command that can be installed using npm (npm install jsapp) this is useful for anyone that wants to work with jsapp through their own filesystem on their computer, or  use version control on their own system
  5. jsapp now has support for coffee script (demo) all one has to do to take advantage of this is to add the suffix .coffee to any file and it will be compiler with the coffee compiler prior to running

Again if you what to be kept up-to-date on the new features of jsapp, check out the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/group/jsapp-us

The Surge

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Seeing as today seems to be the one month adversity of jsapp.us, it seems only fitting to have a small reflection on what has changed and happened over the last month or so.  When I first started announcing Jsapp.us, I was doing it through the node.js irc room.  In fact it was from a conversation that I had in irc, where I got the idea to add the sidebar.  I think that this sidebar greatly helped people understand some of the capabilities of the system rather then just seeing a coding editor.

Within the first week of jsapp, it was on the reddit/programming page and hacker news.  This is a graph of the bandwidth that the site was using during this time.  The smaller section is about 24 hours after it started on reddit.  And the larger spike is getting onto the hacker news page for about 3 hours.

During this time of rapid growth, most of the actions only dealt with running the test of node.  From the comments that I was reading, a large number of people had been wanting to try node out but found it to be somewhat difficult to get up and running on a windows box.

Now that the number of people coming to the site has died down, the deployment system is getting used more as more and ore people are getting use to the idea having a web editor and being able to deploy their apps.

There have also been some features added to the system after its initial upstarting.  First there is now support for an http client. before this was just left blank and was not working.  There is also a profile view, in which all user have a profile that they can write content in, and view their applications and shared files.  Along with the profile view there is now support for importing files from other users when they have made said file public.  This can make it convent by not having to load in ones own version of the library to their own file system to use it.

Some stats: In the first month there were 500 accounts created, 100 applications deployed, and 20,000 visits

Large update JsApp.US

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Today I pushed out a large number of updates for JsApp.us.

First there are a few new features that everyone should know about: (these first two should sound like what appjet was before it closed)

  • People can make libraries public to be imported by other people using the service.  To make a file public see the files command and click the public link.
  • There is a new profile view that is convenient place with links to all of the users applications deployed as wells as all public files so that others can shop around for the modules they are looking for. (Self promotion: http://jsapp.us/p/matthewfl)
  • There is also a share command that few people have discovered, it allows one to share a current version of a files, this is greatly useful for things such as writing blog entries about node.js or getting help with something that is not working.
  • And finally JsApp.us is now open source at github, so if you find a bug that you want fixed, or want to build the next cool feature fork it

JSApp.US

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It seems a little strange that I have not yet written a blog entry on my own project JSApp.US

For those that do not know what it is, it is a platform to write applications quickly in Javascript using the node.js platform and then quickly deploy these applications to the web.  To some extent this is my attempt to relive the days of appjet, but with a new and more powerful platform.

At it stands now, it is my most popular site ever, it laded its self to the reddit/programming page, and was on the top of hackernews for about 3 hours.  It seems to be very successful for now and even I have a few applications that are using it, such as count.jsapp.us, it is powering the little visitor count that I have placed on the side bar.

There are a few new features that I am still planing to implement.  The first feature is going be a sorta profile that will allow for people to “show off” their applications that they have on JSApp.US.  I also have plans to make it so that one can require in files from other users.  This should end up like how github handles it with users, the basis will look like: require(‘other_user/file.name’).