Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

blog.cloudflare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 135 posts

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#121

Post by NicoJuicy »

3rodents wrote: post #100
sebmellen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel that Matthew Prince is still technically active/informed? I've interacted with him in the past and he seemed relatively technically grounded, but that doesn't seem as true these days.

https://xcancel.com/eastdakota/status/2025215495142564177 https://xcancel.com/eastdakota/status/2025221270061580453 Rather than be driven by something rational like building a great product or making lots of money he is apparently driven by a desperate fear of being a dinosaur. Regardless of how competent he is or isn’t as a technologist, a leader leading with fear is a recipe for disaster.

Development has changed, I don't see much else he mentions.

As a dev, you'll need to have those stuff in your knowledge toolbox

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#122

Post by qwertyuiop_ »

kgeist wrote: post #78

It's something we debated in our team: if there's an API that returns data based on filters, what's the better behavior if no filters are provided - return everything or return nothing? The consensus was that returning everything is rarely what's desired, for two reasons: first, if the system grows, allowing API users to return everything at once can be a problem both for our server (lots of data in RAM when fetching…

how about returning an error ? It’s the generic “client sent something wrong” bucket. Missing a required filter param is unambiguously a client mistake according to your own docs/contract → client error → 4xx family → 400 is the safest/default member of that family.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#123

Post by tovej »

samrus wrote: post #105
tovej wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing developers to use unsafe LLM tools is also malicious. This is completely ethical to me. Not commenting on legality.

I dont like it either but its not malicious. The LLM isnt accessing your homeserver, its accessing corporate information. Your employer can order you to be reckless with their information, thats not malicious, its not your information. You should CYA and not do anything illegal even if your asked. But using LLMs isnt illegal. This is bad faith argument

You're talking about legality again. I'm talking about ethics.

Using LLMs for software development is a safety hazard. It also has a societal risk, because it centralizes more data, more power, more money to tech oligarchs.

It's ethical to fight this. Still not commenting on legality.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#124

Post by hypeatei »

tovej wrote: post #87
samrus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats actively malicious. I understand not going out of your way to catch the LLMs' bugs so as to show the folly of the initiative, but actively sabotaging it is legitimately dangerous behavior. Its acting in bad faith. And i say this as someone who would mostly oppose such an initiative myself I would go so far as to say that you shouldnt be employed in the industry. Malicious actors like you will contribute to an e…

Forcing developers to use unsafe LLM tools is also malicious. This is completely ethical to me. Not commenting on legality.

You're not forced to work there and use those tools. If you don't like it, then leave the job. Intentionally breaking things is unethical especially when you're receiving a paycheck to do the opposite.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#125

Post by Bender »

Old tech could work around these outages. Set up GSLB at a DNS provider that does health checks or perform your own health checks to both origin and CDN's and use API's to change DNS. If the origin servers are OK and the CDN is not, automatically change DNS to a different CDN. There should be multiple probes that form a consensus. This process assumes one is managing the configurations of their CDN's through code and API so that one can set up and tear down any number of CDN's on a whim.

That does mean having contracts with more than one CDN provider however the cost should be negotiated based on monthly volume. i.e. the CDN with the most uptime gets the most money. If an existing CDN under contract refuses to negotiate then move some non critical path services to them and let that contract expire. Instate a company wide policy to never return to a vendor if their contract was intentionally not renewed.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#126

Post by tovej »

hypeatei wrote: post #124
tovej wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing developers to use unsafe LLM tools is also malicious. This is completely ethical to me. Not commenting on legality.

You're not forced to work there and use those tools. If you don't like it, then leave the job. Intentionally breaking things is unethical especially when you're receiving a paycheck to do the opposite.

It may be illegal, but it's not unethical.

Doing unethical things because someone pays you would still be unethical. Opposing those while someone pays you is still ethical.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#128

Post by hypeatei »

tovej wrote: post #126
hypeatei wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not forced to work there and use those tools. If you don't like it, then leave the job. Intentionally breaking things is unethical especially when you're receiving a paycheck to do the opposite.

It may be illegal, but it's not unethical. Doing unethical things because someone pays you would still be unethical. Opposing those while someone pays you is still ethical.

Again, no one is forcing him to be there. He's breaking something on purpose. I think you should read up on ethics because this take "I don't like it therefore whatever I do is ethical" is juvenile.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#129

Post by Thaxll »

kgeist wrote: post #78

It's something we debated in our team: if there's an API that returns data based on filters, what's the better behavior if no filters are provided - return everything or return nothing? The consensus was that returning everything is rarely what's desired, for two reasons: first, if the system grows, allowing API users to return everything at once can be a problem both for our server (lots of data in RAM when fetching…

Neither of your options are good, the first question you need to ask is that is the filter optional or not ( this is a contract / API question ).

If not optional then return 400, otherwise return all the results ( and have pagination ).

You should always have pagination in an API.

Re: Cloudflare outage on February 20, 2026

#130

Post by jiggawatts »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #97
kgeist wrote: post #78

It's something we debated in our team: if there's an API that returns data based on filters, what's the better behavior if no filters are provided - return everything or return nothing? The consensus was that returning everything is rarely what's desired, for two reasons: first, if the system grows, allowing API users to return everything at once can be a problem both for our server (lots of data in RAM when fetching…

>allowing API users to return everything at once can be a problem both for our server (lots of data in RAM when fetching from the DB => OOM, and additional stress on the DB) You can limit stress on RAM by streaming the data. You should ideally stream rows for any large dataset. Otherwise, like you say you are loading the entire thing into RAM.

Not to mention the latency reduction!

Buffering up the entire data set before encoding it to JSON and sending it is one of the biggest sources of latency in API based software. Streaming can get latencies down to tens of microseconds!

Post reply on HN