Feature Req: Include Pipe

[Jonathan Vanasco]

On Oct 2, 2006, at 5:41 PM, Bob Ippolito wrote:
> Including database support directly into nginx doesn't really make
> anything easier; it would make it less flexible, more bloated, and
> harder to build/maintain.

i'd agree.

anything smart you'd want to do with database support you could  
easily handle with some sort of script to update a local config file

the only webserver that needs something like a pipe is lighttpd,  
because it can't (or couldn't, i heard it changed) handle absolute  
paths for config file includes.  so you had to 'include_shell `cat / 
full/file/path`'

dynamic config files can be a pain too- you don't have a real way to  
check their validity for syntax, and stuff can break often within the  
code ( lets say it reads a dbm or rdbms connection, and something  
goes down or gets corrupted.  your server is now down ).  personally,  
i tend to use scripts to dynamically create configuration files, then  
tag them into some sort of versioning system.  its way easier to  
audit config files that way, and rollback to something functional in  
the case of disaster.

some webservers  have dynamic database support... they connect to the  
db as needed to parse requests.  it sounds awesome, until you realize  
that its awesomely stupid.  the db calls end up blocking the server,  
the configuration is a nightmare, and  perfomance/usage just sucks.

you also run into another chunk of code that occasionally breaks,  
wastes developer time to maintain instead of making other stuff work  
better, and makes building on your box a fucking nightmare as you  
start getting external dependencies.