[Web-SIG] FastCGI (previously "A query for hosting providers")

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 12:19:31PM -0600, Ian Bicking wrote:
> In all these cases I think it would be nice to support SCGI in addition 
> to FastCGI -- it nearly the same model (at least if you are ignoring all 
> the complicated FastCGI stuff like starting processes), and it's just so 
> darn much easier to configure.

In a little thread at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/zestyping/101939.html, effbot thinks
about creating another framework ("ElementWeb, anyone?").  I thought
about that a little -- what would a blank-sheet-of-paper ElementWeb
look like? -- but then decided that it's simply not possible.

I mean, here are the requirements for how to run applications:

1) Has to be easy to install and configure
2) Has to be installable on hosted services (where you can only upload stuff, 
   not run separate processes)
3) Has to be high-performance.

SCGI fails 2); FastCGI fails 2), and may fail 1); standard CGI meets
1) and 2) but fails 3); mod_python can fail 1); running an HTTP server
and using proxying fails 2).  There's no good solution.

(Personaly, I'm happy to discard 2); virtual servers are pretty
inexpensive, so I don't think there's any need to limit yourself to
FTP-upload-only services.)

--amk