42 as a Service

by bgdnpn on 2/5/2015, 4:37:27 PM with 68 comments

  • by Xeoncross on 2/5/2015, 4:54:02 PM

    You can use HAProxy or the nginx echo module for this. You don't even need to bother creating an index file to be served.

        location / {
        echo "42";
    }
    In fact, I wonder if I could use iptables to return a string...

    Oh, even better - There's probably a jQuery plugin for this!

  • by FLGMwt on 2/5/2015, 5:01:57 PM

    Ah, this reminds me of a small service I wrote when our load balancing was being finicky to help the business side know if tech was aware of a problem.

    http://doestechknowthesiteisdown.azurewebsites.net/

    http://doestechknowthesiteisdown.azurewebsites.net/api/Yes/B...

  • by tylertreat on 2/5/2015, 4:53:48 PM

    How do you maintain data consistency at scale?

  • by mr_justin on 2/5/2015, 5:05:46 PM

    Ha! Reminds me of something I did a long time ago: http://whatis7times.thenumber6.com/

  • by TeMPOraL on 2/5/2015, 5:04:14 PM

    Do you plan to release it as open source in the event of getting acquihired?

    On a more serious note, if SaaS APIs are function calls, this is an equivalent of a constant. Let's build a cloud programming language! Anyone wants to write cons, car, cdr, cond, quote and lambda SaaSes?

  • by croddin on 2/5/2015, 4:50:46 PM

    Well, I don’t know what I expected.

  • by tempVariable on 2/5/2015, 5:04:42 PM

    I'm interested in seeing the price plan and cost of the 'Pro' account.

  • by anom9999 on 2/5/2015, 4:48:34 PM

    Now someone needs to set up another Heroku app to find the question.

  • by gulbrandr on 2/5/2015, 4:51:28 PM

    404 for http://fortytwo-as-a-service.herokuapp.com/42, it's a shame.

  • by fortytw2 on 2/5/2015, 4:54:41 PM

    I think this will usher in a new era of 42aaS startups - A breath of fresh air we all so desperately need in these dark times. Excellent idea!

  • by ta_75000 on 2/5/2015, 5:41:49 PM

    It is unconscionable that a service like this is served over plain, unsecured HTTP. How do I know that the 42 i'm getting is genuine?

  • by GuiA on 2/5/2015, 5:01:59 PM

    I'd like to use this for my enterprise service, but we have many non anglophone users. Is there any way to get a localized response?

  • by xg15 on 2/5/2015, 5:54:26 PM

    While your API is well-done from a technical perspective, what I'm really impressed of is your client ecosystem. There are bindings for pretty much all relevant languages, even COBOL and bare x86 assembler. And most are even part of the language core, so you don't even need a library. That must have required some negotiation skills!

  • by nav1 on 2/5/2015, 5:00:27 PM

    Excellent idea! I will definitely use this in my next project. Do you have a business plan yet?

  • by bgdnpn on 2/5/2015, 5:30:48 PM

    For the Pro plan, visit the pricing page: http://fortytwo-as-a-service.herokuapp.com/pricing

  • by thomasjudge on 2/5/2015, 5:27:46 PM

    Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

    (funny, no one talks about that anymore..)

  • by abluecloud on 2/5/2015, 5:05:02 PM

    Any chance of getting a writeup for the dev process?

  • by sudeep1 on 2/5/2015, 5:06:48 PM

    What is this actually. Can not get the thing. Get request and you get 42. what is the point.

  • by chasing on 2/5/2015, 5:03:24 PM

    $100M valuation by next Wednesday.

  • by stzup7 on 2/5/2015, 4:56:20 PM

    does it run in a Docker container?

  • by billybofh on 2/5/2015, 5:02:54 PM

    The choice of font is terrible...

  • by rbosinger on 2/5/2015, 4:54:50 PM

    This is the answer to everything!

  • by anton_gogolev on 2/5/2015, 4:53:30 PM

    No pricing?

  • by KevinEldon on 2/5/2015, 5:08:10 PM

    Very cool MVP, but can this service support Big Data like 42,000,000,000,000?

  • by drofmij on 2/5/2015, 4:54:16 PM

    The real question is how many lines of code? and who can use less lines :D

  • by tomphoolery on 2/5/2015, 4:50:05 PM

    where is the documentation

  • by JshWright on 2/5/2015, 4:48:01 PM

    I prefer purple.com for my 'Is this thing on?' check.

  • by adnanh on 2/5/2015, 4:57:38 PM

    Needs more Angular...

  • by _paulc on 2/5/2015, 5:22:37 PM

    Ironically there were 42 comments when I opened this.

  • by wnevets on 2/5/2015, 4:53:09 PM

    but is it webscale?

  • by informatimago on 2/5/2015, 5:14:54 PM

    I hope this will be the last comment here.

  • by trias on 2/5/2015, 5:19:23 PM

    I got an Application Error as the answer.

  • by grimmdude on 2/5/2015, 5:00:09 PM

    Very clean HTML

  • by herbig on 2/5/2015, 4:56:02 PM

    Not clever.

  • by hookey on 2/6/2015, 1:02:25 AM

    text/html for this?

  • by trampi on 2/5/2015, 5:12:42 PM

    REST?

  • by HairlessCatCool on 2/5/2015, 5:02:51 PM

    42

  • by callmeed on 2/5/2015, 4:53:49 PM

    is there a SOAP API?

  • by bgdnpn on 2/5/2015, 5:22:15 PM

    my karma is 42, now

  • by _almosnow on 2/5/2015, 5:18:35 PM

    "42 comments", sorry I had to break that :(