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* doc: Rework introductory text in docs and README * doc: Further improvements to intro text
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85 lines
3.4 KiB
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.. _introduction:
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Introduction
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============
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Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything
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to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
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*- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry*
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`Falcon <http://falconframework.org/index.html>`__ is a reliable,
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high-performance Python web framework for building
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large-scale app backends and microservices. It encourages the REST
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architectural style, and tries to do as little as possible while
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remaining highly effective.
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Falcon apps work with any WSGI server, and run great under
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CPython 2.7, PyPy, and CPython 3.3+.
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How is Falcon different?
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------------------------
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We designed Falcon to support the demanding needs of large-scale
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microservices and responsive app backends. Falcon complements more
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general Python web frameworks by providing bare-metal performance,
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reliability, and flexibility wherever you need it.
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**Fast.** Same hardware, more requests. Falcon turns around
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requests several times faster than most other Python frameworks. For
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an extra speed boost, Falcon compiles itself with Cython when
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available, and also works well with `PyPy <https://pypy.org>`__.
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Considering a move to another programming language? Benchmark with
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Falcon + PyPy first.
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**Reliable.** We go to great lengths to avoid introducing
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breaking changes, and when we do they are fully documented and only
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introduced (in the spirit of
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`SemVer <http://semver.org/>`__) with a major version
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increment. The code is rigorously tested with numerous inputs and we
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require 100% coverage at all times. Six and mimeparse are the only
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third-party dependencies.
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**Flexible.** Falcon leaves a lot of decisions and implementation
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details to you, the API developer. This gives you a lot of freedom to
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customize and tune your implementation. Due to Falcon's minimalist
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design, Python community members are free to independently innovate on
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`Falcon add-ons and complimentary packages <https://github.com/falconry/falcon/wiki>`__.
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**Debuggable.** Falcon eschews magic. It's easy to tell which inputs
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lead to which outputs. Unhandled exceptions are never encapsulated or
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masked. Potentially surprising behaviors, such as automatic request body
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parsing, are well-documented and disabled by default. Finally, when it
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comes to the framework itself, we take care to keep logic paths simple
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and understandable. All this makes it easier to reason about the code
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and to debug edge cases in large-scale deployments.
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Features
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--------
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- Highly-optimized, extensible code base
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- Intuitive routing via URI templates and REST-inspired resource
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classes
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- Easy access to headers and bodies through request and response
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classes
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- DRY request processing via middleware components and hooks
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- Idiomatic HTTP error responses
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- Straightforward exception handling
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- Snappy unit testing through WSGI helpers and mocks
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- CPython 2.6-2.7, PyPy 2.7, Jython 2.7, and
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About Apache 2.0
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----------------
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Falcon is released under the terms of the `Apache 2.0 License`_. This means that you can use it in your commercial applications without having to also open-source your own code. It also means that if someone happens to contribute code that is associated with a patent, you are granted a free license to use said patent. That's a pretty sweet deal.
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Now, if you do make changes to Falcon itself, please consider contributing your awesome work back to the community.
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.. _`Apache 2.0 License`: http://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0
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Falcon License
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--------------
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.. include:: ../../LICENSE
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