If you refer to releasing stuff, then try Netlify to publish a HTML document and static assets online. They made it so simple that you can just drag and drop content from your desktop to the browser and it takes care of the rest.

Part of the problem is that it's become a completely different and independent body of knowledge. And you often have to learn a how a specific hosting stack (AWS, or whatever) works on top of that.

Some people find it really interesting. Personally, my eyes glaze over when I try to learn that stuff. It's literally the most boring stuff in the world to me. Oh, I'm supposed to be able to figure out why our DNS configuration is working because I also wrote some database queries 10 levels up in the stack? No thank you, I'd rather just find a new career.

Yeah, just rent a VPS for a month for $5, install an OS, install a (software) web server on it, acquire a subdomain for free (or buy your own domain) then edit the configuration of the web server to respond to requests for different domains and to enable HTTPS.

I think you've explained rather succintly while many new web developers find the whole hosting thing a confusing mess. The assumption (especially on tech forums like this one) seems to be that everyone should learn server management to get a website off the ground.

But that's a bit of a jump to make. Learning how to install a web server or edit a server's configuration isn't always the most straight forward thing in the world, and something like Digital Ocean isn't the best solution for someone who's just starting out and wants to put a few pages online.

So really, my advice for someone wanting to know where to get hosting wouldn't be to setup a VPS, but to ask yourself how much you're willing to learn about configuring servers, and to pick a managed solution or simple shared host if you're not interested in that side of things overall.

How long would you need "to ask yourself how much you're willing to learn about configuring servers"? Because if it's more than a couple of hours, in that time you would already be at least half-way through solving the exercises I suggested.

The parent comment to mine specifically said this issue "limits my personal growth quite a bit. I really need to figure this portion out". I am not aware of any way of figuring this out other than to actually do it - at least once - and in the process of doing, perhaps also do some further reading, depending on how deep one wishes to go.

I never said that in the future you cannot choose one of the easier turn-key solutions, but you will have acquired an idea of how those things work behind the scenes.

I would disagree - configuring nginx/apache/whatever to just display a static site is really easy - and honestly - it dosen't take much time.

Honestly, i had more trouble helping my friend with 'simple shared hosting' CMS to setup his webpage correctly, than with setting up nginx on ubuntu for the first time.

You are missing the point. We are talking about absolute beginners.

They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch.

Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that.

I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't helpful at all.

If you're an absolute beginner - you don't need things to be online, just stick with local.

What do you need it to be online for?

If we want people who know web programming, basic server management on a 5$/mo VPS is something they'll need to learn, sorry.

If people want to dabble, stick with local.

If people want a business result with minimal friction - stick to instagram, facebook, medium, shopify etc. Existing platforms cover 99% of people's needs when they think they want a website. They're either trying to sell or promote something - existing platforms cover those needs very well - a website is something that fewer and fewer people will ever need to have as time goes on. This begs the question - what are people learning html/css for? Tell them the truth - we'll need fewer 'coders' in the next 30 years, either go get a real computer science degree or look for a different line of work. Just my opinion of course :)

I need it to be online because that was the underlying motivation for me starting the tutorial in the first place, and if you haven't shown me that, your tutorial failed to address the actual purpose.

Growing up, there was nothing worse than the tutorials or classes that didn't actually do the thing you wanted: "learn to program a game! *will not actually be able to have a game anyone can play at end of tutorial".

And since computer science isn't about the web, and university is a pretty bad place to learn programming, respectfully your advice is the opposite of mine.

University is a bad place to learn programming, if you want free education via paid internships, a high starting salary and opportunity to work for a giant corps in the future or even straight out of school.

A tutorial about making games is about as sensible as a tutorial about making airplanes. Go to school... Tutorials are good for fixing a leaky faucet...

Every shared host I've ever used would let you just SFTP your files to the server (which, for static or PHP is all you need,) and they all come with their services already configured, and tend to work out of the box. I've only ever had to deal with the CMS when viewing logs and creating email accounts.

Configuring a server may be relatively easy, but not having to is easier.

I laughed at this, so I hope it was intended to be sarcastic.

I know how to do those things, but even so, the thought of doing all that just to get a little side project online gives me a sense of dread. It’s not what I would call fun.

I have trouble setting up servers and database instances while being a full-time professional developer. At work the DevOps people handle that, but still I should be able to do it on my own.

I hate to imagine how hard it is for someone who has never typed 'cd' or 'ls' in a terminal.

Setting up hosting is one of those tasks with way more possible downsides than upsides. The best case scenario is "it works as expected." And there a ton of ways to fall short of that.

File and directory permissions screw people up all the time. If you set them wrong, you can create security holes, keep your site from being served, break SSH logins, break TLS, break git, etc. And online forums are full of bad advice a la "I just set 777 on the directory and all the errors went away!"

Yeah, I'm with you. For static pages, I like gitlab. For other things, there's always google-app-engine or similar services.