From: Brian Candler <b.candler@...>
Date: 2010-09-10T16:29:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Where to start for developing a service REST API?

Markus Fischer wrote:
> Now I don't know if it's a good idea to start off with Rails for such a
> thing (honestly, I really want to keep things small) but if not Rails,
> I'm actually lost as in that case what alternatives are generally 
> available.

Look at Sinatra. You'll be amazed what you can build with three lines of 
code :-) The framework itself is basically one source file and easy to 
understand in its entirety.

> In the end I indent it to run it over my Apache which already provides
> my HTTPS and authentication infrastructure; but I don't mind if it
> doesn't run within Apache and I just need to proxy the request to some
> custom Ruby server.

Look at Phusion Passenger, which will let you run any Rack-based app 
(including Rails and Sinatra apps) within Apache, automatically taking 
care of starting and stopping app processes as required.

It starts processes by first making a template process and then forking 
it whenever a new child is required. If you combine it with Ruby 
Enterprise Edition (Ruby with copy-on-write-friendly garbage collector) 
then you'll also get a lot more memory sharing between these processes.
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