What's news?

June 23, 2010 – Chicago Boss 0.3.10 (download) provides a pure-ASCII way to use the new query operators. This releases also includes a DB Driver Quickstart for developers interested in supporting databases other than Tokyo Tyrant.

June 21, 2010 – Chicago Boss 0.3.9 (download) features new save hooks, two new query operators, and fixes a few bugs.

June 17, 2010 – Chicago Boss 0.3.7 (download) features a new query syntax with a rich set of comparison operators (regular expressions, searching, numerical comparisons, etc.). See the BossDB API docs for details.

How is Chicago Boss different from other Erlang MVC frameworks?

Check out the new comparison chart, but the features that set Chicago Boss apart are:

• A scalable database. Chicago Boss refuses to work with anything but the non-relational Tokyo Tyrant database.

• Automatic code recompiling: Because your time is valuable.

• Admin interface: Save time by using the built-in /admin interface instead of writing CRUD-y pages that only developers will use anyway.

• Automatic EDoc generation: You can always find up-to-date EDoc for your models at /doc on your development server; you don't even need to type "make".

• Easy I18n: Stop messing with PO-files and do your localizing in a web browser. If you ask nicely, Boss will even translate your app for you using the Google Translate API.

Why should I switch to Erlang from Python/Ruby/Perl/PHP/FORTRAN?

Because Erlang is the future of web programming. No other platform uses a purely asynchronous I/O strategy or has the same scalability and availability. Chicago Boss lets you take advantage of it all while writing clean, simple, elegant web apps. If you're new to Erlang, be sure to Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good!.

What features does Chicago Boss lack? I don't want to learn Boss only to find out it's missing Feature X.

Great question! Chicago Boss does NOT have:

• Built-in tools for sending email Now in CBoss 0.3.6
• Built-in deployment or monitoring tools
• Any kind of JavaScript generation tools
• Support for partitioned databases
• Support for databases other than Tokyo Tyrant

We're anxious for these features, too, and invite you to submit your ideas or patches to the Chicago Boss mailing list.

How mature is Chicago Boss?

Chicago Boss is still in beta, but it's getting better every day. The API is small, but performance is great (as of version 0.3.2, at any rate). There might be minor changes to the API before the 1.0 release, but Boss is being used on low-traffic production sites.

Where can I download Chicago Boss?

Stroll over to the Chicago Boss download page