From: Ben Bleything <ben@...>
Date: 2007-12-14T11:15:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Looking for a new web framework.

On Fri, Dec 14, 2007, Tim Uckun wrote:
> What is the state of mod_ruby these days? Is it robust? Why is it that
>  rails, merb, etc don't run on it?

I think it's pretty robust.  I think it always has been :)  I think that
there are a lot of reasons why it's not in common use these days.  Rails
supported it (maybe still does) early on, but it didn't work that well
because each Apache child has its own interpreter that is persistent...
contrast this with FCGI (for instance) where the state is effectively
cleared between requests.  Rails just wasn't designed to run in that
kind of environment.  It's really just philosophical differences.

As for the others, I suspect they just followed in Rails' footsteps.
Apache has its downsides, of course... it's big and complex (though,
once you get familiar with it, Apache totally rocks).  It could be
considered overkill, particularly with things like Mongrel around.

Ultimately it's about what works best for your app.  A lot of what Rails
is is just convention.  You can build exactly the same app with the same
domain models inside Arrow or merb or with pure mongrel.  Just gotta
figure out what features you want to get "for free" :)

Ben