From 2e91d76e2e1f2dfd963a1483df461d71b96acc3d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rob Ede Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:58:25 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] clarity role of actix in whatis --- content/docs/whatis.md | 17 +++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/docs/whatis.md b/content/docs/whatis.md index 02c325e..18e7bb5 100644 --- a/content/docs/whatis.md +++ b/content/docs/whatis.md @@ -4,22 +4,27 @@ menu: docs_intro weight: 100 --- -# Actix is an ecosystem of crates +# Actix is an Ecosystem of Crates -Actix is a few things. The base of it is a powerful actor system for Rust on top of which the -`actix-web` system was originally built. This is what you are most likely going to work with. What -`actix-web` gives you is a powerful and very fast web development framework. +Long ago, `actix-web` was built on top of `actix`, a powerful and fast actor system. +Now, `actix-web` is largely unrelated to the actor framework and is built using a different system. +Though `actix` is still maintained, it's usefulness as a general tool is diminishing as the +futures and async/await ecosystem matures. At this time, the use of `actix` it is only required for +WebSocket endpoints. -We call `actix-web` a small and pragmatic framework. For all intents and purposes it's a +We call `actix-web` a powerful and pragmatic framework. For all intents and purposes it's a micro-framework with a few twists. If you are already a Rust programmer you will probably find yourself at home quickly, but even if you are coming from another programming language you should find `actix-web` easy to pick up. + + + An application developed with `actix-web` will expose an HTTP server contained within a native executable. You can either put this behind another HTTP server like nginx or serve it up as-is. Even in the complete absence of another HTTP server `actix-web` is powerful enough to provide HTTP/1 and HTTP/2 support as well as TLS (HTTPS). This makes it useful for building small services ready for -distribution. +production. Most importantly: `actix-web` runs on Rust {{< rust-version "actix-web" >}} or later and it works with stable releases.