AMA with Barack Obama • Hacker News Board

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#261

Post by pippy » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:02 AM UTC

ashray wrote: post #131

pippy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question: is the because reddits backend is in python? I often hear that PHP + varnish is only limited by the size of the pipe. Can this scale on cloud platforms?

No, it's probably due to the massive number of reads/writes pumping through their system. I'm pretty sure that their database isn't able to handle what's going on at the moment. Also, if you were to use Varnish as a cache, that wouldn't help you much with write access because every time there is a write (a new post..) you'd have to invalidate the cache. In a high volume scenario such as this (tons of posts coming in.…

Thank you, this is the answer that I was looking for

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#262

Post by ljd » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 7:52 PM UTC

deno wrote: post #246

ljd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can configure beanstalk to scale your database out as well.

Scaling out database is nothing at all like spinning up stateless app servers.

Well there is no magical database solution where you can do that and I have to make decisions on what I can buy today not on what may be magically developed in the future.

In this respect, application partitioning with a deployable schema is not a bad solution for what I do.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#263

Post by forensic » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 2:48 AM UTC

pippy wrote: post #259

forensic wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stupid question because the particular dialect of assembler this was written in is completely irrelevant for performance considerations. You've been brainwashed by the idiotic pop culture language wars that pretend a question like Ruby vs Python vs whatever has any meaning. These are debates over buzzwords, not reality. All that matters is the database configuration and associated architecture. Not some buzzwo…

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Both Python, PHP and Varnish are (mostly) written in higher level languages. Also performance has a massive effect on how and what language a site is written in.

>I'm not sure what you're talking about.

My comment is sarcastic and abstract. A literal interpretation will not suffice to understand my meaning.

If you want it literally: the language this is written in is irrelevant, because the performance differences between the various languages are negligible next to the performance differences that come about due to the precise design of the website.

A poorly engineered website in a "fast" language will still be slower than a well-engineered website in a "slow" language. The actual language is completely irrelevant next to the implementation details.

>Also performance has a massive effect on how and what language a site is written in.

Not really. Experienced engineers understand that language is basically irrelevant for a situation like this. Whether it is written in Python or something else is irrelevant information.

Additionally, newbies tend to focus on "language" and "language wars" and the comparison between languages not for any engineering or technical reason. Newbies do this because languages represent buzzwords around which various communities congregate. The Python vs. Ruby fight is as irrelevant as the Presbyterian vs. Baptist fight. It is the psychological appeal of "identity politics" that motivates people to engage in these meaningless debates about buzzwords.