Even though I like development in Rails, I’ve been frustrated at times with the whole Rails deployment rigamarole. The joy of Rails for me, however, comes primarily from its underlying language, Ruby, so I’ve been thinking about ways around Rails.

There are a number of up-and-coming solutions to the problem of deploying Rails, but one of the simplest has been around the longest: eRuby. Basically, this is a way to use Ruby like you would PHP… embedded in HTML files using <%= and %>. Another way to think of it is Rails without controllers.

I recently wrote an eRuby Howto at A Small Orange hosting. The “howto” describes how I set up my shared account.

If you’re interested in an inexpensive hosting solution for Ruby, or if you just want a reliable and friendly hosting solution, may I recommend A Small Orange? I have had nothing but good experiences with their responsive support department, and I am quite happy with their shared hosting service. I also get a small referral credit if you sign up via one of the links in this blog entry.

I may be writing a little more about simple eRuby solutions to problems in the future.