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

Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

rust-lang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–307 of 307 posts

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#301

Post by simion314 »

weberc2 wrote: post #296
simion314 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the JVM run-time is installed and used by average people, so the defaults should be set for this people that install Java to run a desktop app IMO, the developers that want extra performance should read the manual and configure things.

I’ve never heard of a runtime that forces a dichotomy between end-user- and developer-friendliness (putting aside for the moment that end users are famously annoyed by the Java runtime). Rust, Go, etc don’t have runtimes which force a choice between end-users and developers...

JVM can be used for Desktop, server and in the past applets , it would be impossible to find a configuration that is optimal for all applications, so competent developers would tweak the defaults or use different deployment methods like AOT compilation or bundle your own JVM , is your problem that JVM is used in so many different places that different algorithms, runtimes and optimization were created for it ? Your examples of Go and Rust are of languages that are so far not been used in such diverse places, there are no good alternative compilers but something like Python has such a diversity of runtimes.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#302

Post by bluejekyll »

pflanze wrote: post #300
bluejekyll wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction in the vernacular between statically typed and strongly typed languages is so narrow at this point that pointing it out is a bit pedantic. I would say Rust is both a strongly typed language and a statically typed language. The static type checking happens at compile time, and in general the types in use are strict and strongly typed at runtime. But, even Rust allows you to cast types from one to anoth…

> The distinction in the vernacular between statically typed and strongly typed languages is so narrow at this point that pointing it out is a bit pedantic. I'm not sure why you think this has changed today, or what you mean. It appears to me that many programmers don't realize that the two are orthogonal, so I find it an important, not pedantic, distinction (it just happens that languages generally improve on both f…

It's not that I disagree, with any of your points. I think they're all valid. I do think most people use the term strongly typed, where they mean statically -and- strongly typed.

I personally don't fret about it unless we get into specific details about these notions. I do especially like your (d), which many people often overlook when designing programs. An example would be to use a String as the Id in a DB, but not wrap the String in a stronger type to represent the Id, thus not getting the advantage of static type checking by the compiler. So there are definitely areas where this conversation can lead to better advantages of different languages.

For example, in Rust declaring a type to be a `struct Id(String);` would cause no overhead to be associated with the Id in terms of memory allocation to that of just a String. Not all languages can say that, thus we could also get into a fun conversation about the overhead associated with the type system itself. All fun topics.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#303

Post by bluejekyll »

lllr_finger wrote: post #290
bluejekyll wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction in the vernacular between statically typed and strongly typed languages is so narrow at this point that pointing it out is a bit pedantic. I would say Rust is both a strongly typed language and a statically typed language. The static type checking happens at compile time, and in general the types in use are strict and strongly typed at runtime. But, even Rust allows you to cast types from one to anoth…

It wasn't intended as a drive-by pedantic swipe - I was genuinely curious whether OP meant strong or static. Conversations about type systems and application correctness are exactly the place where precise definitions are welcomed, but I understand that the distinction between strong and static is often conflated. It can be relevant if we're discussing static typing for example, as then something like TypeScript beco…

I think that's fair.

If you do find that writeup, I'd be interested in reading it.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#304

Post by pflanze »

bluejekyll wrote: post #302
pflanze wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The distinction in the vernacular between statically typed and strongly typed languages is so narrow at this point that pointing it out is a bit pedantic. I'm not sure why you think this has changed today, or what you mean. It appears to me that many programmers don't realize that the two are orthogonal, so I find it an important, not pedantic, distinction (it just happens that languages generally improve on both f…

It's not that I disagree, with any of your points. I think they're all valid. I do think most people use the term strongly typed, where they mean statically -and- strongly typed. I personally don't fret about it unless we get into specific details about these notions. I do especially like your (d), which many people often overlook when designing programs. An example would be to use a String as the Id in a DB, but not…

Thanks for your reply. I fully agree.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#305

Post by drbawb »

pcwalton wrote: post #146
paulddraper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New java versions do break existing libraries or apps Have you used the Rust compiler? My experience tells me that any Github Rust project not updated in the last two years doesn't work with my Rust compiler. Whereas Java apps written a decade ago still compile and run on OpenJDK/Oracle often with zero or near zero changes. > Often an architect or software team will insist on using the Oracle JVM rather than the in…

> My experience tells me that any Github Rust project not updated in the last two years doesn't work with my Rust compiler. Please file bugs against the Rust compiler then, because that would be a serious violation of the compatibility rules!

My project stopped building on compilers w/ the new module system. I did file an issue (56247, see also 56317) and was told it won't be fixed. The fix to my dependency was trivial, but it did stop my code from compiling with no change to my Cargo.toml/Cargo.lock, and ultimately it did require me to unpin that crate's version and update it.

My understanding was that by virtue of my project not having the edition 2018 key I would have been isolated from such changes to the language.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#306

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

amluto wrote: post #274
IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This highlights the problem of averages. Most (99.87% or so) humans download zero npm packages. But those that do, often download them in the thousands at a time. And yes, clean-room CI servers are a big part of that.

Perhaps npm could save themselves oodles of money by supplying a nice turnkey npm package cache and requiring major users to use it. And perhaps the CI server folks would want this anyway because it would be vastly faster.

You might be surprised (or maybe not) to learn that many service providers are far more willing to spend money on predictably large bandwidth bills than on less predictable changes in their infrastructure which require human time and attention to implement.

Re: Case Study: Npm uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks [pdf]

#307

Post by cferr »

kbenson wrote: post #240
derefr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does every language have to be suitable for every task? “Operating a business-logic-embedding CDN at scale” isn’t ever something Node claimed to be capable of. I wouldn’t expect any other dynamic runtime-garbage-collected language, e.g. Ruby or Python or PHP, to be suited to that use-case either. Use the right tool for the job. The PHP website is running PHP, but it isn’t running a web server written in PHP. Web serv…

> The PHP website is running PHP, but it isn’t running a web server written in PHP. Are you sure? I'm not familiar with the PHP.net architecture, and there may be less gains from how PHP has traditionally tied itself as a module to web servers in the past, but Rails (and any number of other dynamic language frameworks) are actually web servers implemented in that language, with an optional separate web server such as…

Seems Python.org runs on the Django framework.

https://github.com/python/pythondotorg/network/dependencies

Post reply on HN