Why use Faraday over Net::HTTP?

Question

Why would someone use the Faraday gem vs directly using Net::HTTP? What is the benefit of using a wrapper like this?

This is going to draw opinions, not facts. – the Tin Man Jan 02 '14 at 19:56 — the Tin Man, Jan 02 '14 at 19:56
There are objective reasons to use Faraday over Net::HTTP. – davogones Jan 03 '14 at 02:13 — davogones, Jan 03 '14 at 02:13

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 02 '14 at 20:19

14

Using the Net::HTTP adapter directly is fine, it's just binding your code to a particular interface which may differ from alternate tools. The main reason one would use Faraday is that it wraps multiple adapters, one of which is Net::HTTP. If you're using Faraday and start out with Net:HTTP, you can later decide to use Excon, Typhoeus, Patron or EventMachine without changing more than a line or two of configuration. Had you used Net::HTTP directly, you'd have to change a lot of implementation-specific code to switch to another adapter.

answered Jan 02 '14 at 20:19

Chris Cashwell

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Good explanation. You should also mention middleware. For example, I use JSON middleware to automatically encode my request as JSON and decode the response from JSON. – davogones Jan 03 '14 at 02:14
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Faraday should also help normalize exceptions across all of the libraries as well, correct? – user3084728 Jan 06 '14 at 20:17
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Yes @user3084728, Faraday will catch each adapter's exceptions and re-throw them as Faraday exceptions. – Chris Cashwell Jan 06 '14 at 21:12

Why use Faraday over Net::HTTP?

1 Answers1