Elixir GenServer Explained
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Elixir GenServer Explained
1–10 of 91 posts
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#2Well explained article. Good job OP!
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#3Maybe a dumb complaint, but I hate the name. I have a really hard time not reading it as the active name "Generate Server". Like, I'd expect it to be a function that generates servers (whatever that means, since what it's dealing with isn't something I'd normally call "a server" either). It bugs the hell out of me every time I read Elixir code. One of those things I have to keep reminding myself: "OK, it's not what it looks like it is, at all... what did these misleading terms actually mean, again?"
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#4Maybe a dumb complaint, but I hate the name. I have a really hard time not reading it as the active name "Generate Server". Like, I'd expect it to be a function that generates servers (whatever that means, since what it's dealing with isn't something I'd normally call "a server" either). It bugs the hell out of me every time I read Elixir code. One of those things I have to keep reminding myself: "OK, it's not what i…
Is "general" or "generic" more misleading than "generate"?
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#5Since these insert events are being buffered, what happens if the process dies? Are all of those inserts lost?
I feel like Erlang/Elixir is designed to handle cases like this robustly, but it's not clear to me how this code avoids losing data when a process crashes, potentially up to 5s worth of updates!
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#6Maybe a dumb complaint, but I hate the name. I have a really hard time not reading it as the active name "Generate Server". Like, I'd expect it to be a function that generates servers (whatever that means, since what it's dealing with isn't something I'd normally call "a server" either). It bugs the hell out of me every time I read Elixir code. One of those things I have to keep reminding myself: "OK, it's not what i…
It's "generic" server: http://erlang.org/doc/man/gen_server.html
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#7Since these insert events are being buffered, what happens if the process dies? Are all of those inserts lost? I feel like Erlang/Elixir is designed to handle cases like this robustly, but it's not clear to me how this code avoids losing data when a process crashes, potentially up to 5s worth of updates!
I'd like a solid answer to this too; it's my biggest concern with any sort of "batch online requests" functionality in any language; unsafe shutdowns can/will always happen at some point, and it feels like this is always a data loss risk.
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#8Since these insert events are being buffered, what happens if the process dies? Are all of those inserts lost? I feel like Erlang/Elixir is designed to handle cases like this robustly, but it's not clear to me how this code avoids losing data when a process crashes, potentially up to 5s worth of updates!
I think you might solve this by writing a "reliable" supervisor process which actually receives the messages, and preserves message or state history to replay for its supervised process in case it crashes. Of course this really just shoves the problem up the stack, but at least you can stick to "let it crash" when writing the supervised process, and take more care when writing the supervisor which has a smaller scope of responsibility.
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#9Since these insert events are being buffered, what happens if the process dies? Are all of those inserts lost? I feel like Erlang/Elixir is designed to handle cases like this robustly, but it's not clear to me how this code avoids losing data when a process crashes, potentially up to 5s worth of updates!
You can add retry logic in your genServer, but for anything but the most simple use cases, you would want to add a Supervisor and define a retry strategy.
https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/supervisor-a...
Re: Elixir GenServer Explained
#10Maybe a dumb complaint, but I hate the name. I have a really hard time not reading it as the active name "Generate Server". Like, I'd expect it to be a function that generates servers (whatever that means, since what it's dealing with isn't something I'd normally call "a server" either). It bugs the hell out of me every time I read Elixir code. One of those things I have to keep reminding myself: "OK, it's not what i…
It's "generic" server: http://erlang.org/doc/man/gen_server.html
The sooner you start smacking people with tribal knowledge, the sooner many people start to back away slowly.
I used to interview ex-coworkers. I don't do it as much anymore because it gets old/depressing and the answers tend not to change that much.
If, for the purposes of thinking about turnover, you look at a former colleague as an 'aggrieved party', we are generally somewhere in the neighborhood of mediocre at agreeing that certain things were the 'final straw', and work backward through that to actions to increase retention.
One of the things that interested me about these conversations was that people tend to work chronologically backward through many of their complaints. But what was surprising was that some people would go all the way back to their first weeks. To the first straws. The warning signs they ignored. In a way this is not unlike talking to someone who just broke up with a romantic partner.
And while their ex may realize that his/her problems started back with some early inconsiderate behavior that snowballed, and resolve to 'do better next time', I rarely see companies do this, unless I instigate it.
Point is, these petty slights stack up, and can become a big part of someone's narrative for abandoning you (often in a huff). First impressions are important, and you dismiss them at your own peril.