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Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

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Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#421

Post by b33j0r »

jeswin wrote: post #151
sph wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantages of Elixir are not performance-related. There is a lot of focus on raw performance on web-related services, when in reality most of their running time is spent waiting for IO. If there are two things the BEAM excels at, is IO and turning almost any problem into half a dozen processes that are scheduled and run in parallel, if not geographically-distributed, with 1/50th the effort of any other language.…

> ... with 1/50th the effort of any other language. To junior developers reading this, such statements are never true.

To senior developers reading this, such statements are never true ;)

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#422

Post by throwaway894345 »

pdimitar wrote: post #237
throwaway894345 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing Elixir to Python and Rails. Many of us have seen Python replaced with other languages for an astronomical improvement. Python and Ruby are the slowest category of languages; they’re easily beaten and you need to offer some evidence as to why the improvement was derived from migrating to Elixir specifically rather than moving away from Python/Rails.

Sure, not wrong on the outset, but you do come across as dismissive of Elixir while stating this.

I'm not dismissive of Elixir, I'm dismissive that Elixir magically solved this problem in a way other languages couldn't. If you have some supporting evidence or rationale as to why Elixir is uniquely able to solve this problem, I'm happy to hear it, but so far you've offered up "low latency GC" which isn't unique to Elixir and itself doesn't adequately explain the degree of improvement over Python (GC latency alone doesn't reduce from 200 servers to 4). Again, I'm happy to entertain arguments about why Elixir is uniquely able to improve performance, but I'm not going to take it on faith (which you interpret as 'dismissive of Elixir').

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#423

Post by fidotron »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #418
throwaway894345 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling someone “biased” and “acting in bad faith” is a personal attack and violates this site’s rules. People get rate limited for far less on this site.

He didn't call him that at all. He said him being unwilling to explain his points and instead just making claims comes across that way. He at no time called him biased or said he was directly acting in bad faith

> Biased. And not arguing in good faith. :(

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#424

Post by cutler »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #413
cutler wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But using either one of them instead of Java is probably going to be a huge win for most teams on concurrent workloads Not for long. Something is looming on the horizon in Java-land.

Something's always looming over Java-land: The dark shadow of Oracle, watching over everything with it's flaming eye.

Looming as in Loom-ing.

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#425

Post by [deleted] »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #419
fidotron wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is adopting the missionary tactic of feigning a desire for discussion when it is just veiled evangelism.

He seemed to be asking you to back up your claims and you seem to be just saying claiming that you don't need to and he is the problem...

[deleted]

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#426

Post by pdimitar »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #422
pdimitar wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, not wrong on the outset, but you do come across as dismissive of Elixir while stating this.

I'm not dismissive of Elixir, I'm dismissive that Elixir magically solved this problem in a way other languages couldn't. If you have some supporting evidence or rationale as to why Elixir is uniquely able to solve this problem, I'm happy to hear it, but so far you've offered up "low latency GC" which isn't unique to Elixir and itself doesn't adequately explain the degree of improvement over Python (GC latency alone…

Okay, how about "a runtime that has been extremely carefully crafted for the lowest possible latency all the way to the point of the hardware falling over"?

It's very hard to provide evidence unless we make a screen-share call where I show you real time dashboards of services being bombarded with thousands of requests per second and for you to see for yourself how the median latency numbers climb from 25ms to 45ms and then fall back to 20-30ms after the burst load subsides.

I find it difficult to just describe this because as much as I've seen it many times in practice, it's also practically impossible (NDAs and compliance nightmares) to demonstrate it to a programmer outside the companies I've worked with without violating all sorts of laws. :(

But yes, basically: a super latency optimized runtime, a GC that's not very sophisticated but it elegantly dodges most GC problems by simply releasing all memory linked to an actor as soon as it quits (and Erlang/Elixir encourage you to spawn many of those in the right conditions; not for every single thing though), and one of the very fastest dynamic languages in the world, probably second only to JS's V8.

All of that is combined with me working with several other programming languages and their hosting solutions which were tripping over themselves when 1000 req/s started coming in (looking at you, Ruby 3.X and Puma and a few other servers; or PHP, or Python).

TL;DR: reliability is much better, latency is predictable.

Weirdest thing is: people don't believe it. If you only knew the CTOs I worked with: they were extremely data-driven and they would not allow me or anyone to just pull all of that out of their bottom. All had to be proven with numbers, and me and my teams did that, many times.

I understand the skepticism somewhat, but you and a few others seem to look at Elixir through the lenses of "too good to be true", and IMO you should try relaxing that skepticism to some extent. And try to be little more sympathetic because again, I literally cannot give you the hard cold data without violating at least three laws.

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#427

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

fidotron wrote: post #423
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't call him that at all. He said him being unwilling to explain his points and instead just making claims comes across that way. He at no time called him biased or said he was directly acting in bad faith

> Biased. And not arguing in good faith. :(

You are leaving the prior part of his sentence out. Regardless, Before he said that you weren't willing to answer either.

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#428

Post by giancarlostoro »

pessimizer wrote: post #309
dpkirchner wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is more a Google problem than a Pinterest problem. Google does the same thing with text search (returning results that have few if any of your search terms), possibly over relying on opengraph tags and other such metadata.

Pinterest did this on purpose, for traffic, and have maintained it for many years now. If either company saw it as a problem, it wouldn't be.

...and yet whenever Google deprioritizes over emphasis on SEO, Pinterest never seems to go away... Is it some sort of partnership they have that keeps Pinterest so prevalent? Or did Google one day just decide to promote Pinterest more, I'm sure they promote Facebook and other social media site results too.

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#429

Post by giancarlostoro »

swarnie wrote: post #211
bradleykingz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to use Pinterest intentionally, a whole other to have it shoved down your throat.

Where / How are you finding Pinterest links? I've just searched about two years of browser history and i haven't landed their once.

Are you using Google Images? Because thats the main culprit.

Re: Elixir saves Pinterest $2M a year in server costs

#430

Post by robbintt »

itronitron wrote: post #67
xk_id wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was never sure where all the hate is coming from. Pinterest is actually one of my favourite apps, that I use regularly – and I use very few apps. I actually really love it and after years I still find new uses for it. As far as I can tell, they have a pretty loyal user base.

The hate stems from Pinterest requiring an account, which they didn't start out requiring, just like Instagram which I also don't visit.

An account is not required anymore.
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