# Replace Pound/Pens/Balance with Ruby alternative **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 18, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867 "2006-07-18T18:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/1 "2006-07-18T18:36:00Z")
Right now you can use either Pens/Balance/Pound to put in front of some Mongrels and it works really good (easy to setup too!). I got to thinking, would it be possible to mimic what Pens/Balance/Pound does in pure Ruby (yeah, I know the answer is yes)? I guess I’m looking for a starting point. Does one simply write an HTTP listener that then redirects the calls to Mongrel? Is there a project already doing this? Thanks for the help. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/2 "2006-07-18T19:37:12Z")
Why would you want to rewrite a mature, debugged, efficient C program in Ruby? I understand the benefits (Ruby accessibility, no additional compilation required, etc.), but can’t see them outweighing the disadvantages (efficiency and maturity). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/3 "2006-07-18T19:50:08Z")
Tom M. wrote: > I understand the benefits (Ruby accessibility, no > additional compilation required, etc.), but can’t > see them outweighing the disadvantages (efficiency > and maturity). Pound/Pen/Balance doesn’t work on Windows. Yes, there are alternatives, but I’d like to have a simple way of deploying my apps to ANY platform without much fuss. Speed/Efficiency mean nothing to me as my apps are internal to a company and used by less than 50 people througout the day. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/4 "2006-07-18T20:00:59Z")
On Jul 18, 2006, at 10:50 AM, Wesley L. wrote: > internal to a company and used by less than 50 people througout the > day. Actually there is a binary pen.exe that works on windows. I am using it here for a way to do simple mongrel clusters on windows. [http://siag.nu/pub/pen/pen.exe](http://siag.nu/pub/pen/pen.exe) -Ezra ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 8:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/5 "2006-07-18T20:38:26Z")
Wesley L. wrote: > would it be possible to mimic what Pens/Balance/Pound does in > pure Ruby (yeah, I know the answer is yes)? I guess I’m looking for a > starting point. Does one simply write an HTTP listener that then > redirects the calls to Mongrel? Is there a project already doing this? Ok, back to my original question…please. I don’t want to use Pen/Balance/Pound/Apache/Lighttpd/Litespeed, etc. etc. at the moment. I’d really just like to know if a pure Ruby app for this exists and if not where I should start to write my own. (ie: Take a look at Module XYZ and Project ABC, etc.) Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/6 "2006-07-19T01:15:28Z")
On 7/18/06, Wesley L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Speed/Efficiency mean nothing to me as my apps are > internal to a company and used by less than 50 people througout the day. If Speed/Efficiency doesn’t matter then why even bother with Mongrel. Webrick running in production mode does everything you need it to do and is a purely ruby based solution. Josh ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@Wesley\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Wesley_L)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/replace-pound-pens-balance-with-ruby-alternative/98867/7 "2006-07-19T08:16:39Z")
On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 20:38 +0200, Wesley L. wrote: > not where I should start to write my own. (ie: Take a look at Module > XYZ and Project ABC, etc.) Well, you have all the tools available. Mongrel is a web server that answers requests. Net/http in ruby does requests. After a bit of work you could probably easily write something. It wouldn’t super duper fast but it’s possible. – Zed A. Shaw > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/) [http://www.railsmachine.com/](http://www.railsmachine.com/) – Need Mongrel support?