readme.md in rackup-2.1.0 vs readme.md in rackup-2.2.0

- old
+ new

@@ -1,15 +1,19 @@ # Rackup -`rackup` provides a command line interface for running a Rack-compatible application. +`rackup` provides a command line interface for running a Rack-compatible application. It also provides a generic interface for starting a `rack`-compatible server: `Rackup::Handler`. It is not designed for production use. [![Development Status](https://github.com/rack/rackup/workflows/Test/badge.svg)](https://github.com/rack/rackup/actions?workflow=Test) ## Installation ``` bash -$ gem install rackup +-- For Puma +$ gem install rackup puma + +-- For Falcon +$ gem install rackup falcon ``` ## Usage In a directory with your `config.ru` simply run the command: @@ -17,9 +21,38 @@ ``` bash $ rackup ``` Your application should now be available locally, typically `http://localhost:9292`. + +## (Soft) Deprecation + +For a long time, `rackup` (the executable and implementation) was part of `rack`, and `webrick` was the default server, included with Ruby. It made it easy to run a Rack application without having to worry about the details of the server - great for documentation and demos. + +When `webrick` was removed from the Ruby standard library, `rack` started depending on `webrick` as a default server. Every web application and server would pull in `webrick` as a dependency, even if it was not used. To avoid this, the `rackup` component of `rack` was moved to this gem, which depended on `webrick`. + +However, many libraries (e.g. `rails`) still depend on `rackup` and end up pulling in `webrick` as a dependency. To avoid this, the decision was made to cut `webrick` as a dependency of `rackup`. This means that `rackup` no longer depends on `webrick`, and you need to install it separately if you want to use it. + +As a consequence of this, the value of the `rackup` gem is further diminished. In other words, why would you do this: + +``` bash +$ gem install rackup puma +$ rackup ... +``` + +when you can do this: + +``` bash +$ gem install puma +$ puma ... +``` + +In summary, the maintainers of `rack` recommend the following: + + - Libraries should not depend on `rackup` if possible. `rackup` as an executable made sense when webrick shipped with Ruby, so there was always a fallback. But that hasn't been true since Ruby 3.0. + - Frameworks and applications should focus on providing `config.ru` files, so that users can use the webserver program of their choice directly (e.g. puma, falcon). + - There is still some value in the generic `rackup` and `Rackup::Handler` interfaces, but we encourage users to invoke the server command directly if possible. + - Webrick should be avoided if possible. ## Contributing We welcome contributions to this project.