On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 12:20:18PM -0700, Cliff Wells wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 11:55 -0400, Ross Vandegrift wrote:
> > 1) Users of other HTTP servers are always fiddling with them,
> > restarting after crashes. This may be due to misuse, non-optimal
> > config - I'm not sure. But I've never had stability issues like this
> > with Apache.
>
> I had many issues with Lighttpd, but I've had none with Nginx. I'd also
> have to question your use of "always" in the above sentence. I strongly
> suspect aren't speaking from experience here, rather just hearsay.
Hmmm, now that you mention it, I think all of those deployments may
have been lighttpd. I had to hear a lot of the fallout - lighttpd
was being used to generate tokens on servers that would be used for
instantiating authentication credentials in a single sign-on server
for admins.
So there was much gnashing of teeth whenever this would crap out.
I was fortunate enough to not have this be my baby, and mostly didn't
have to deal with it.
But I probably shouldn't continue to take that experience as
indicitive of everything that's not Apache.
> And it's poorly understood by just as many, if not more. I first
> switched from Apache not due to scalability concerns (like you, I've not
> encountered them), but because I find Apache's configuration to be
> overwhelming and convoluted.
Really? I can see it being overwhelming, but it seems very
understandable to me. Paired with their documentation, I don't think
I've ever had a real problem getting Apache to do something I knew it
could.
Well, unless you count kinda crazy, obscure mod_rewrite stuff - but of
course that's a black art just because the rabbit hole goes as deep as
you care to follow :).
> The fact that you need an army of support reps isn't really advancing
> your argument ;-)
Heh, well, for every change needed to Apache, there's 1000 people that
need help configuring their POP3 client. Apache is hardly the reason
the reason there's an army :).
> This makes Apache best for... medium-sized sites that don't care about
> resource utilization? This is a ridiculous claim, so I'll assert
> instead that Apache is best if you need a *specialized* service, such as
> mod_svn or mod_jakarta.
I don't think that's such a ridiciulous claim! Consider the
application server that hosts the apps that I write for my company's
internal use. It hosts four or six Pylons applications and one Rails
app. One of these apps handles around 1000 uses a day, one around
100, one around 10. The Rails app is an AJAX form that just pushes
collected data to the browser, so is usually busy despite only having
an average of 1 user a day.
The server these apps are housed on is gratuitously overpowered.
Apache's flexability makes this use-case trivial.
Maybe this deployment pattern is uncommon?
> Apache proponents will point out the wealth of
> modules as evidence that Apache is the best for general purpose web
> serving. But being best at fronting *particular* applications doesn't
> make it best *in general*. So it's not Nginx that's specialized for a
> particular workload, it's Apache that's specialized.
Eh, I wouldn't make that claim about Apache modules. Many of them are
irrelevant to me, some seem downright pointless.
> Nginx is like a finely-balanced chef's knife: suitable for a variety of
> tasks, large and small, as long as they all involve slicing. Apache, on
> the other hand, is the swiss-army knife of webservers: bulky, full of
> odd specialty tools, and on occasion, marginally useful as a knife.
>
> In either case, apparently they both make for a funny lump in some
> people's pockets ;-)
I wouldn't want the lump of a chef's knife anywhere near my pocket,
lest I be bleeding out all over the floor!
> Anyway, I think we've gone way OT for long enough. We can continue
> offlist if you like.
I'm more or less done - I think you've convinced me that Nginx is
probably worth another look at some point. After all, there's nothing
wrong with having another tool around to solve some problem, even if
Apache is where I'd go first.
--
Ross Vandegrift
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
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