There are a couple of really great tools in Delphi that provide you with lots of runtime error information. The one I use and love is MadExcept, but EuekaLog is another admirable product that does more or less the same thing. They provide a full stack trace, as well as all manner of additional information about your application’s environment, like CPU usage and the percentage of memory that’s free.

During development, Rails provides that information right in the browser, which is great. But what happens when you’ve deployed to a live site? Well, first, the user likely gets that standard Rails “something bad has happened” page, without any details. Sure, you can review your application’s logs daily and see what’s going on, but there are other, better solutions.

The one I’ve started using, and just think is great, is called HopToad. It’s perfect for startups, as for a single application it’s totally free, and the next level up (for 4 applications) is just $5 a month. Basically, you install a plugin into your application, add a small settings block, and presto, whenever that “something bad has happened” message comes up, your application tells HopToad, who in turn tells you.

You get an email notifying you of an error, as well as a web application that contains the details, including a stack trace, the browser in use, and details about the server environment. It even automatically groups similar errors together, so you can view how many times it’s happened. Once you’ve resolved the error, or if you just don’t care, you can mark it as resolved and remove it from your view.

Overall, HopToad is a very elegant solution to knowing what your app is doing once it’s out in the wild, and one that I’m very excited to be using.