[Web-SIG] serving (potentially large) files through wsgi?

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 09:50 PM 12/18/2007 +0100, Manlio Perillo wrote:
>Phillip J. Eby ha scritto:
>>At 09:06 PM 12/17/2007 +0100, Manlio Perillo wrote:
>>>Phillip J. Eby ha scritto:
>>>>This is precisely why WSGI doesn't really have any 
>>>>"configuration" defined, because the whole idea is that it should 
>>>>be as "plug-and-play" as possible.  Server-level configuration 
>>>>options are a liability to be avoided, a sometimes-necessary 
>>>>evil.  They aren't a feature.
>>>
>>>Disagree.
>>Note that your disagreement doesn't retroactively change WSGI's 
>>design goals or rationale,
>
>
>I disagree with your "Server-level configuration options are a 
>liability to be avoided, a sometimes-necessary evil" phrase.

As I said, that doesn't retroactively alter the WSGI rationale.


>But now I'm not sure of what do you mean by "configuration".

I mean configuring the *server* to correctly run a WSGI application, 
not the application's configuration.  For example, a server option to 
control whether Range requests are supported would be an example of 
"server configuration" - i.e., something to be avoided since it 
forces a user to make a choice about something he or she may know 
nothing about.


>>which are what I've been explaining.  Your desire for configuration 
>>in one place also doesn't negate others' desires to simply drop 
>>applications into a server with only the most minimal server 
>>configuration possible.
>
>But some applications/middlewares *will* need some configuration;
>maybe they have safe defaults for configuration parameters, but my 
>problem is: how should these configuration parameters handled?

That's not server configuration; that's application configuration.


>So, *all* the configuration (nginx server, application, middlewares) 
>can be placed (and, IMHO, should be placed) in the nginx configuration file.

That's application configuration, and isn't related to what I'm 
talking about.  Ideally, a WSGI server will "just run" any 
application object it is given, without the *server* needing to be 
configured (except for specifying the object to run).

Being able to specify how the application object(s) are created and 
configured is indeed a nice feature to have in a WSGI server, and 
that's not what I'm talking about at all.