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.