So your app has a few dependencies. A database here, a queue there, maybe a cache. Running all that stuff before you start coding is a pain. Shutting it all down can prove even more tedious.
Out of nowhere, I find two solutions to this problem. takeup seems more streamlined; clone a script, write a YAML config. foreman is a gem that defines a Procfile format for defining your project’s dependencies. Both handle all the particulars of starting your app up, shutting it down, etc.
I haven’t tried either of these because, of course, they came out the same week I bite the bullet and write a shell script to automate it on my projects. But I’m very pleased that folks are scratching this itch and hope I’ll have no choice but to start using one when it reaches critical goodness.
