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The industry used apache a lot and it deserves kudos, but it was a poorly architected from software from the start. Aolserver was a much better server as is erl

The industry used apache a lot and it deserves kudos, but it was a poorly architected from software from the start. Aolserver was a much better server as is erlang yaws.

davidw 17y ago
Aolserver had a lot of good things going for it, including its use of Tcl, but it was open sourced too late, in 1999, when Apache already had a lot more traction and uptake. Yaws is neat, but it's kind of difficult to compare to Apache because it doesn't do as much in terms of some of the handy tools that Apache ships with, and at the same time it does more because you can write dynamic applications with it directly. Also, once again, I think it was released when Apache already was quite popular and widely used. Furthermore, the pool of people capable of hacking on C is orders of magnitude larger than that of Erlang hackers. And when it comes down to it, Apache's way of doing things isn't that bad when you consider that it potentially has a lot of things loaded into it: those can fail occasionally without taking down the whole thing. And it's not as if Apache forks a new process for every request it receives.
munctional 17y ago
Apache was king (and still has the largest install base), but nginx is probably the best webserver you can use right now. http://wiki.nginx.org http://wiki.nginx.org
tszming 17y ago
Thanks for remind me.... for the Aolserver
Angostura 17y ago
It wasn't named "a patchy server" for nothing.
- Angostura 17y ago
  Come now people, remember your history the original FAQ on the Apache Server project's website claimed that "The result after combining [the NCSA httpd patches] was a patchy server..."
pquerna 17y ago
Actually, I would contend that the pre-forking architecture WAS the correct architecture for first 10 years. Remember how much PHP crashes?
- wmf 17y ago
  It's a little amazing that we're still having threads vs. events debates 15 years on. I guess I'll have to wait a few more years for someone to invent an event-driven fast path (that loads no plugins for reliability) fronting a preforked pool of worker processes.
  - pquerna 17y ago
    hacking on it in httpd trunk man, just working for this startup called cloudkick keeps distracting me from the real priorities in life :-)

The industry used apache a lot and it deserves kudos, but it was a poorly architected from software from the start. Aolserver was a much better server as is erlang yaws.

davidw 17y ago

Aolserver had a lot of good things going for it, including its use of Tcl, but it was open sourced too late, in 1999, when Apache already had a lot more traction and uptake. Yaws is neat, but it's kind of difficult to compare to Apache because it doesn't do as much in terms of some of the handy tools that Apache ships with, and at the same time it does more because you can write dynamic applications with it directly. Also, once again, I think it was released when Apache already was quite popular and widely used. Furthermore, the pool of people capable of hacking on C is orders of magnitude larger than that of Erlang hackers. And when it comes down to it, Apache's way of doing things isn't that bad when you consider that it potentially has a lot of things loaded into it: those can fail occasionally without taking down the whole thing. And it's not as if Apache forks a new process for every request it receives.

munctional 17y ago

Apache was king (and still has the largest install base), but nginx is probably the best webserver you can use right now. http://wiki.nginx.org http://wiki.nginx.org

tszming 17y ago

Thanks for remind me.... for the Aolserver

Angostura 17y ago

It wasn't named "a patchy server" for nothing.

Angostura 17y ago
Come now people, remember your history the original FAQ on the Apache Server project's website claimed that "The result after combining [the NCSA httpd patches] was a patchy server..."

pquerna 17y ago

Actually, I would contend that the pre-forking architecture WAS the correct architecture for first 10 years. Remember how much PHP crashes?

wmf 17y ago
It's a little amazing that we're still having threads vs. events debates 15 years on. I guess I'll have to wait a few more years for someone to invent an event-driven fast path (that loads no plugins for reliability) fronting a preforked pool of worker processes.
- pquerna 17y ago
  hacking on it in httpd trunk man, just working for this startup called cloudkick keeps distracting me from the real priorities in life :-)