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StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

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Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get +100 rep bonus for linking your accounts, so you shouldn't have a problem being allowed to comment.

How? I can't seem to find this option in account admin panels.

It happens automatically, if I remember correctly.

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#112

So this is what, a 2000 request/sec peak? Over 11 servers, that's like 200 requests/sec peak per frontend? The problem with scale-up is if you actually have to get a few times larger, it becomes super expensive. But fortunately hardware is increasing so much that you can probably just get away with it now. There's probably a crossover point we're rapidly approaching where even global-scale sites can just do all their…

Not quite sure how you derive a peak figure from a monthly average; but on average it's more like 560000000/(30 * 24 * 3600) = 216 req/s

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#114
post #79
post #44

Really hate the separate sites thing. I use a half dozen of them and they are computer related, so it is a pain in the ass always having to register and not being allowed to comment/answer at first, etc.. They have a few improvements now like importing your profile from other sites, but they shouldn't even have so many separate sites in the first place, just a tag or a category or something.

I agree. Diffuses the quality of the related sites. Means you have to deal with twice as many moderators. I dont see why they couldnt have done a "subreddit' approach where you subscribe to the SE category you want and it shows on your homepage.

Hum, each subreddit has its own moderators as well. They also have a front page with questions from the different sites[1], though it's not filtered by the ones you have an account on.

[1] http://stackexchange.com/

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#116
post #52
post #44

Really hate the separate sites thing. I use a half dozen of them and they are computer related, so it is a pain in the ass always having to register and not being allowed to comment/answer at first, etc.. They have a few improvements now like importing your profile from other sites, but they shouldn't even have so many separate sites in the first place, just a tag or a category or something.

There is a deliberate reason the sites are split. Spolsky talks about in depth here: http://vimeo.com/37309773 Since it's largely sociological, it's also the reason my money is on SE as opposed to Quora in this space.

Thanks - that's a great watch.

Essentially they're trying to keep SE from becoming a "chat" community, and keep it focused on being a Q&A community.

With Yahoo Answers, Usenets, even Subreddits, you have people having conversations within posts, which generates noise for people who were looking for answers to questions.

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never said that. The closest I can think of is that simple code (short stack, no DI, layering, etc.) is simpler AND faster at the same time, and in my talk I give specific examples.

To me, that sounds like you are saying simple code is often efficient (or that efficient code can by simple), not that efficient code is simpler (which is how I interpret the original text). To be very clear, I don't doubt the author (you?) had a good point to make, just that it was unclear what that was from the way it was presented, and to such a degree that it took me out of the flow of reading the post, and perha…

Sorry, I'm not the author, I'm the guy at Stack Overflow that's being cited by the article (Marco C.).

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#118
post #5

> With their SQL Servers loaded with 384 GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD, AWS would cost a fortune. I have next to zero experience with server administration, but 384GB seems like a lot to me. Is that common for production servers for popular web services? Do you need a customized OS to address that much memory? Seems like you'd really need to beef up the cache hierarchy make 0.38TB of RAM fast.

There are a few erroneous replies to your comment, re: Windows support for that much memory. Memory support for versions of Windows: User-mode process Kernel-mode address space address space (process bit-ness) 32-bit 64-bit all Server Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008 R2 4 GB* 2048 GB 2048 GB Windows Server 2012 4 GB* 4096 GB 4096 GB Windows Server 2012 R2 4 GB* 131072 GB 131072 GB Client Operating Systems: Wind…

process address space != physical memory

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#119

"SO goes to great lengths to reduce garbage collection costs, skipping practices like TDD, avoiding layers of abstraction, and using static methods." I don't understand this at all. What does TDD have to do with reducing garbage collection?

My guess is that they feel that the layers of indirection and abstraction often needed to make TDD work result in an object creation pattern that results in heavy GC load during normal operation. The references to "using static methods" is probably related to this.

ps. That's my guess, but I'd encourage you to post your question to the meta site for SO.

Re: StackOverflow Update: 560M Pageviews a Month, 25 Servers

#120
post #87
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who knows Joel Spolsky would expect a MS stack :)

It's difficult to take pragmatic advice from someone who took the least pragmatic (and most expensive) route for a startup web company.

I'm not sure I agree. Pragmatic choices based on using what you know and not just choosing a toolset because everyone else is using it.
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