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Rustful – A RESTful web framework for Rust

140 points by aethertap 12y ago

JeremyMorgan 12y ago
This is the type of thing that will make me want to try Rust. Just glancing over the code this looks fairly clean and simple, and could be a good foundation moving forward. Nice work!
- hckr1292 12y ago
  You should checkout IronFramework.io and nickel.rs. They are both a little farther along and try to do something similar to ExpressJS.
  - wldcordeiro 12y ago
    http://ironframework.io/ http://ironframework.io/ and http://nickel.rs/ http://nickel.rs/ for anyone not wanting to search and then find the links.
  - wldcordeiro 12y ago
    Which is more feature rich and/or mature? They both seem really interesting and I've been enjoying Rust a lot.
    - broodbucket 12y ago
      After playing with them both I'd say at this stage they are very close. I ended up going with Nickel because it felt more comfortable. Both are actively worked on, I'd suggest writing a quick prototype in both and seeing which you prefer.
      - wldcordeiro 12y ago
        I see. I'll give them both a try, Rustful looks interesting but very new and immature. I need to read through the docs for Nickel and Iron because they both look great and make some test apps. I'm coming from the Django/Flask world and I've really taken an interest in Rust.
bgentry 12y ago
Looks to be inspired heavily by Go's net/http package and its interfaces: http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/ http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/
- hckr1292 12y ago
  Those are fighting words ;-) Just kidding. Great minds think alike.
- ogeon 12y ago
  Nah, I never looked at it. :)
m0th87 12y ago
With Rust's switch to 1:1 threading (soon to be not even optional AFAIK), how will this affect the concurrency capabilities of Rust-based web servers, and servers in general?
- Shamanmuni 12y ago
  AFAIK green threads were removed from the core language but are available as crate green (also known as greenlib). You can use that for building servers. http://doc.rust-lang.org/green/ http://doc.rust-lang.org/green/
  - ben0x539 12y ago
    *libgreen They're gonna get yanked out of the core distribution too and won't be integrated in the stdlib IO anymore, so it's fair to say that Rust is switching to 1:1 threading.
    - kaoD 12y ago
      Any reason why? I'd love to read some discussion about it.
      - ben0x539 12y ago
        Since both threading models were supported and compatible throughout IO, concurrency primitives and other runtime bits, the design of both was considered to be constrained too much to get either model where it should be. The decision was made around https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/230 https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/230 but I'm not sure whether there's any important prior discussion not linked from there, the topic has been kicked around for a bit.
        steveklabnik 12y ago
        We talked about it at the last work week a lot https://github.com/rust-lang/meeting-minutes/blob/master/workweek-2014-08-18/libgreen-and-tls-redux.md https://github.com/rust-lang/meeting-minutes/blob/master/wor...
hckr1292 12y ago
This is really cool -- also, I'm curious why Ogeon built this. It seems eerily similarly to what reem is trying to accomplish with IronFramework.io and what the good people at Nickel.rs are doing as well. I'd love to hear if this is trying to accomplish a fundamentally different goal or if it was more of a learning project.
- b0b_d0e 12y ago
  Just a quick note, Rustful has been around for longer than both of those projects. Rustful just hasn't had the same amount of press that the others have had.
- ogeon 12y ago
  b0b_d0e is right. You can read the whole story in my main comment, but in short: There were no good alternatives and I needed it.
kolanos 12y ago
This looks great. Now all I need is a database abstraction layer, any recommendations?
- hckr1292 12y ago
  Checkout Rust Postgres: https://github.com/sfackler/rust-postgres https://github.com/sfackler/rust-postgres That's what the community is focused on.
  - freekh 12y ago
    Is Rust Postgres async?
dead10ck 12y ago
I'm curious about how these web framework crates, like this and IronFramework.io, are dealing with the imminent obsoletion of rust-http. It seems rather strange to build a completely new web framework on rust-http when it will soon be completely replaced with teepee.
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  There's more out there than rust-http and Teepee. For example, the Cargo registry is using Rust bindings to Civet... (That said, yes, it would be bad to build on top of a deprecated library. This library isn't new though, it's older than the Teepee announcement.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- jonreem 12y ago
  There's also hyper (https://github.com/hyperium/hyper https://github.com/hyperium/hyper), a native Rust HTTP implementation I am working on.
ogeon 12y ago
Wow! I did not expect this. It's fantastic to see that people are actually interested in this project, so here comes the story of Rustful: It all began at the beginning 2014. I had a university project where I should build some kind of website with a database and I wanted to build it in Rust. The problem what that there was no good frameworks out there and those who existed did not compile, so I decided to roll my own. I would just need the basic routing and request handling, so it wasn't hard. I played with some words and came up with the name Rustful (combination of Rust and RESTful, but you did probably guess that) and hated it, but my friends told me that it was a great name and I thought that, well, it's silly enough to actually work. It grew on me over time. Anyway, time passed and I finished my project. I thought that I could keep developing Rustful and use it for my own website and so on. I thought that I should keep it small and simple and "out of the way", because I do personally get annoyed by things that tries to control my work flow too much. There is no "The Rustful Way (tm)" to do things and it shouldn't be. Time kept passing, as usual, and other frameworks started to pop up and gain followers and users. Some, like Iron, had a whole team behind them and it became hard to keep up and, at the same time, complete my studies. This eventually lead to me putting the project on ice during the summer. Fast forwards to this morning. I get a mail about someone asking what the difference between Iron and Rustful is and I think "why do people still keep linking to this thing?" and then I see the torrent of stars on Github. This is when I create my HN account to write this. Now I'm thinking: "Is it time to revive Rustful?"
- jk4930 12y ago
  "Is it time to revive Rustful?" Make it so.

140 points by aethertap 12y ago

This is the type of thing that will make me want to try Rust. Just glancing over the code this looks fairly clean and simple, and could be a good foundation moving forward. Nice work!

hckr1292 12y ago
You should checkout IronFramework.io and nickel.rs. They are both a little farther along and try to do something similar to ExpressJS.
- wldcordeiro 12y ago
  http://ironframework.io/ http://ironframework.io/ and http://nickel.rs/ http://nickel.rs/ for anyone not wanting to search and then find the links.
- wldcordeiro 12y ago
  Which is more feature rich and/or mature? They both seem really interesting and I've been enjoying Rust a lot.
  - broodbucket 12y ago
    After playing with them both I'd say at this stage they are very close. I ended up going with Nickel because it felt more comfortable. Both are actively worked on, I'd suggest writing a quick prototype in both and seeing which you prefer.
    - wldcordeiro 12y ago
      I see. I'll give them both a try, Rustful looks interesting but very new and immature. I need to read through the docs for Nickel and Iron because they both look great and make some test apps. I'm coming from the Django/Flask world and I've really taken an interest in Rust.

bgentry 12y ago

Looks to be inspired heavily by Go's net/http package and its interfaces: http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/ http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/

hckr1292 12y ago
Those are fighting words ;-) Just kidding. Great minds think alike.
ogeon 12y ago
Nah, I never looked at it. :)

m0th87 12y ago

With Rust's switch to 1:1 threading (soon to be not even optional AFAIK), how will this affect the concurrency capabilities of Rust-based web servers, and servers in general?

Shamanmuni 12y ago
AFAIK green threads were removed from the core language but are available as crate green (also known as greenlib). You can use that for building servers. http://doc.rust-lang.org/green/ http://doc.rust-lang.org/green/
- ben0x539 12y ago
  *libgreen They're gonna get yanked out of the core distribution too and won't be integrated in the stdlib IO anymore, so it's fair to say that Rust is switching to 1:1 threading.
  - kaoD 12y ago
    Any reason why? I'd love to read some discussion about it.
    - ben0x539 12y ago
      Since both threading models were supported and compatible throughout IO, concurrency primitives and other runtime bits, the design of both was considered to be constrained too much to get either model where it should be. The decision was made around https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/230 https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/230 but I'm not sure whether there's any important prior discussion not linked from there, the topic has been kicked around for a bit.
      - steveklabnik 12y ago
        We talked about it at the last work week a lot https://github.com/rust-lang/meeting-minutes/blob/master/workweek-2014-08-18/libgreen-and-tls-redux.md https://github.com/rust-lang/meeting-minutes/blob/master/wor...

hckr1292 12y ago

This is really cool -- also, I'm curious why Ogeon built this. It seems eerily similarly to what reem is trying to accomplish with IronFramework.io and what the good people at Nickel.rs are doing as well. I'd love to hear if this is trying to accomplish a fundamentally different goal or if it was more of a learning project.

b0b_d0e 12y ago
Just a quick note, Rustful has been around for longer than both of those projects. Rustful just hasn't had the same amount of press that the others have had.
ogeon 12y ago
b0b_d0e is right. You can read the whole story in my main comment, but in short: There were no good alternatives and I needed it.

kolanos 12y ago

This looks great. Now all I need is a database abstraction layer, any recommendations?

hckr1292 12y ago
Checkout Rust Postgres: https://github.com/sfackler/rust-postgres https://github.com/sfackler/rust-postgres That's what the community is focused on.
- freekh 12y ago
  Is Rust Postgres async?

dead10ck 12y ago

I'm curious about how these web framework crates, like this and IronFramework.io, are dealing with the imminent obsoletion of rust-http. It seems rather strange to build a completely new web framework on rust-http when it will soon be completely replaced with teepee.

steveklabnik 12y ago
There's more out there than rust-http and Teepee. For example, the Cargo registry is using Rust bindings to Civet... (That said, yes, it would be bad to build on top of a deprecated library. This library isn't new though, it's older than the Teepee announcement.)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
jonreem 12y ago
There's also hyper (https://github.com/hyperium/hyper https://github.com/hyperium/hyper), a native Rust HTTP implementation I am working on.

ogeon 12y ago

Wow! I did not expect this. It's fantastic to see that people are actually interested in this project, so here comes the story of Rustful: It all began at the beginning 2014. I had a university project where I should build some kind of website with a database and I wanted to build it in Rust. The problem what that there was no good frameworks out there and those who existed did not compile, so I decided to roll my own. I would just need the basic routing and request handling, so it wasn't hard. I played with some words and came up with the name Rustful (combination of Rust and RESTful, but you did probably guess that) and hated it, but my friends told me that it was a great name and I thought that, well, it's silly enough to actually work. It grew on me over time. Anyway, time passed and I finished my project. I thought that I could keep developing Rustful and use it for my own website and so on. I thought that I should keep it small and simple and "out of the way", because I do personally get annoyed by things that tries to control my work flow too much. There is no "The Rustful Way (tm)" to do things and it shouldn't be. Time kept passing, as usual, and other frameworks started to pop up and gain followers and users. Some, like Iron, had a whole team behind them and it became hard to keep up and, at the same time, complete my studies. This eventually lead to me putting the project on ice during the summer. Fast forwards to this morning. I get a mail about someone asking what the difference between Iron and Rustful is and I think "why do people still keep linking to this thing?" and then I see the torrent of stars on Github. This is when I create my HN account to write this. Now I'm thinking: "Is it time to revive Rustful?"

jk4930 12y ago
"Is it time to revive Rustful?" Make it so.