From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2003-04-03T22:13:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby FastCGI bindings?

On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 09:51:10PM +0900, Colin Coates wrote:
> The RAA has an entry for a Ruby FastCGI implementation.
> 
> Unfortunately, both the home page
> (http://fenris.codedogs.ca/~eli/fastcgi.html) and the download page
> (http://fenris.codedogs.ca/~eli/fastcgi.rb) are broken links.

Use the module called "fcgi" instead. This merges together the functionality
of two older modules, one which was pure Ruby and the other in C.

> I am specifically interested in FastCGI for Apache; does anyone know of
> Ruby bindings to mod_fastcgi?

Well, at the application side you don't bind to mod_fastcgi (that is the
webserver side of things), you'd use the 'FastCGI developer kit' C library
instead. fcgi is a wrapper around that. In the absence of the developer kit,
fcgi implements the same protocol directly in Ruby.

> I can alternatively use mod_ruby. Would anyone like to share their
> opinion?

I have not compiled mod_ruby into a server, but personally I think fastcgi
rocks. It has a lot going for it:
- in a mixed language environment, you can run Ruby fastcgi, Perl fastcgi,
  C fastcgi... all under the same webserver without having to add any
  additional modules
- each CGI application runs as its own process or pool of processes, so you
  have better visibility, more control (e.g. you can truss them, set
  different sized pools for each application, kill them individually)

However, mod_ruby has the advantage of directly exposing the Apache API to
your program, which lets you do clever things like hooking into the URL
rewriting mechanism. FastCGI just simulates a CGI environment for persistent
processes.

Regards,

Brian.