Zed Shaw: Rails Is A Ghetto

Mongrel the Web Server

[ Mongrel (web server) ] [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongrel_%28web_server%29 ] is a thin web server, written in Ruby, by Zed Shaw.

Here is a interesting characteristic:

… It is used to run Ruby web applications and presents a standard HTTP interface. This makes layering other servers in front of it possible using a web proxy, a load balancer, or a combination of both, instead of having to use more conventional methods employed to run scripts such as FastCGI or SCGI to communicate.

This is made possible by integrating a custom high-performance HTTP request parser implemented using Ragel.

Mongrel was the first web server used by Twitter, and inspired Node.js of Ryan Dahl

The guy, Zed Shaw, seems quite a colorful character. He is all pissed at the Ruby community, and left the Ruby community, and started [ Mongrel2 ] [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongrel2 ] webserver, and one of its specific mantra, burned into its official doc, is “language agnostic”.

Shaw subsequently created Mongrel2, an open-source “language agnostic” web server and the successor to Mongrel server.

After the original author Zed Shaw left the Ruby on Rails-scene the releases of Mongrel stopped. The current release 1.1.5 is no longer able to install in Ruby versions higher than 1.9.2 …

A new and maintained server, called Thin, uses the Mongrel parser.

“Thin”, home page at [http://code.macournoyer.com/thin/ ]

Zed Shaw the Dude

Zed has removed the article. It's quite scathing. Here's a local copy saved from web archive: Rails_Is_A_Ghetto_by_Zed_Shaw_2007-12-31.txt. A very entertaining read, as well as getting you into some of the guts of Ruby community.

Zed's home page: http://www.zedshaw.com/. You can see him full of himself all over.