3 ms·

> are slow even with native code, in the vast majority of cases, and FastCGIs are fast enough with properly written Python/Perl. (...) Yes, CGIs are slow beca

by faragon 11y ago

> are slow even with native code, in the vast majority of cases, and FastCGIs are fast enough with properly written Python/Perl. (...) Yes, CGIs are slow because of the process spawn. About FastCGIs, if you want 10-100x throughput increase with same hardware, you have to go to a lower level. That's the tradeoff. I.e. properly written in native vs properly written in high level language. > The tradeoff in bugs and dev time is just not worth it. The tradeoff in bugs and dev time can be solved/increased with a higher level abstraction, e.g. using high level libraries, so the developer could avoid risks. > With incredibly consistent and repeatable correlation, abstractions over those low level system cost a lot in performance, thus contradicting your earlier points. No, if the abstraction is in the same low level language, e.g. using high level libraries on lower-level languages. In the end, higher level languages solve memory management, string handling, rich library, etc. With good libraries, C/C++/Others can be safer and as simple as e.g. NodeJS.

beagle3 11y ago
> With good libraries, C/C++/Others can be safer and as simple as e.g. NodeJS. C cannot - there is apparently no way that is both reasonably efficient and reasonable foolproof to write C code; if you have large scale examples written by more than one person[0], I would love to see them. I concur C++ should be able to, but I again request large scale examples, because I've never seen any. Have you? > if you want 10-100x throughput increase with same hardware, you have to go to a lower level. That's the tradeoff. I.e. properly written in native vs properly written in high level language. You have to define your terms. Is Lua high or low level? Well written Lua code that does not need millions of small objects seems to run to within x2 as slow as comparable C code when executed through LuaJIT2. I've seen well written Perl beat well written C in the past (the Perl was better written, but both were well written). > The tradeoff in bugs and dev time can be solved/increased with a higher level abstraction, e.g. using high level libraries, so the developer could avoid risks. With a language that so easily lets you shoot yourself in the foot like C or C++, this is not the case in practice, see, e.g., every C program ever written. Can you give the examples you're thinking of so we can discuss them? [0] djb is an army all by himself, and even djb had security bugs - although, IIRC, by shear luck not exploitable on x86 or ARM.
- faragon 11y ago
  > C cannot - there is apparently no way that is both reasonably efficient and reasonable foolproof to write C code; if you have large scale examples written by more than one person[0], I would love to see them. Not easy. Sure. In that regard, I'm trying something in order to help in the case of C, but it is not intended specifically for the problem we're speaking (just strings and other data structures, not a "NodeJS for C"): https://github.com/faragon/libsrt https://github.com/faragon/libsrt > I concur C++ should be able to, but I again request large scale examples, because I've never seen any. Have you? Of course not. There were many years ago when servers were way slower than today. The problem is not solved for current web, obviously. "Solved", in the sense of having some framework for having low level stuff in the backend without doing a byzantine effort. The point is about how to break monopolies in the David vs Goliath sense. If you have the resources, go high level. > You have to define your terms. Is Lua high or low level? Well written Lua code that does not need millions of small objects seems to run to within x2 as slow as comparable C code when executed through LuaJIT2. I've seen well written Perl beat well written C in the past (the Perl was better written, but both were well written). Please note that I was speaking about extreme optimization, even avoiding filesystem I/O, and reducing memory copies to the minimum. So it is not about comparing C vs Perl doing disk I/O, but in pure calculous. High level languages, even using JIT, have an important data structure size overhead and also allocation issues (when handling 10^5-10^6 requests per second on a single thread), so even with properly optimized code you can have poor performance in comparison to low level languages with optimized data structures (e.g. libraries using low level data structures using indexes instead pointers, multiplexing buffers, allowing memory aliasing for allowing conversions in the same buffer, etc.). > With a language that so easily lets you shoot yourself in the foot like C or C++, this is not the case in practice, see, e.g., every C program ever written. Can you give the examples you're thinking of so we can discuss them? Write backends in C/C++ is nonsense, unless you want to handle 10-100x requests using same hardware. If your service allows to cover the expense, go high level. Of course :-) P.S. some low level backend stuff: Kore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558196 Rwasa: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948749 Redis: https://github.com/antirez/redis https://github.com/antirez/redis (e.g. changing it in order to call the DB operations directly from same-process, without doing connections)

by faragon 11y ago

beagle3 11y ago

> With good libraries, C/C++/Others can be safer and as simple as e.g. NodeJS. C cannot - there is apparently no way that is both reasonably efficient and reasonable foolproof to write C code; if you have large scale examples written by more than one person[0], I would love to see them. I concur C++ should be able to, but I again request large scale examples, because I've never seen any. Have you? > if you want 10-100x throughput increase with same hardware, you have to go to a lower level. That's the tradeoff. I.e. properly written in native vs properly written in high level language. You have to define your terms. Is Lua high or low level? Well written Lua code that does not need millions of small objects seems to run to within x2 as slow as comparable C code when executed through LuaJIT2. I've seen well written Perl beat well written C in the past (the Perl was better written, but both were well written). > The tradeoff in bugs and dev time can be solved/increased with a higher level abstraction, e.g. using high level libraries, so the developer could avoid risks. With a language that so easily lets you shoot yourself in the foot like C or C++, this is not the case in practice, see, e.g., every C program ever written. Can you give the examples you're thinking of so we can discuss them? [0] djb is an army all by himself, and even djb had security bugs - although, IIRC, by shear luck not exploitable on x86 or ARM.

faragon 11y ago
> C cannot - there is apparently no way that is both reasonably efficient and reasonable foolproof to write C code; if you have large scale examples written by more than one person[0], I would love to see them. Not easy. Sure. In that regard, I'm trying something in order to help in the case of C, but it is not intended specifically for the problem we're speaking (just strings and other data structures, not a "NodeJS for C"): https://github.com/faragon/libsrt https://github.com/faragon/libsrt > I concur C++ should be able to, but I again request large scale examples, because I've never seen any. Have you? Of course not. There were many years ago when servers were way slower than today. The problem is not solved for current web, obviously. "Solved", in the sense of having some framework for having low level stuff in the backend without doing a byzantine effort. The point is about how to break monopolies in the David vs Goliath sense. If you have the resources, go high level. > You have to define your terms. Is Lua high or low level? Well written Lua code that does not need millions of small objects seems to run to within x2 as slow as comparable C code when executed through LuaJIT2. I've seen well written Perl beat well written C in the past (the Perl was better written, but both were well written). Please note that I was speaking about extreme optimization, even avoiding filesystem I/O, and reducing memory copies to the minimum. So it is not about comparing C vs Perl doing disk I/O, but in pure calculous. High level languages, even using JIT, have an important data structure size overhead and also allocation issues (when handling 10^5-10^6 requests per second on a single thread), so even with properly optimized code you can have poor performance in comparison to low level languages with optimized data structures (e.g. libraries using low level data structures using indexes instead pointers, multiplexing buffers, allowing memory aliasing for allowing conversions in the same buffer, etc.). > With a language that so easily lets you shoot yourself in the foot like C or C++, this is not the case in practice, see, e.g., every C program ever written. Can you give the examples you're thinking of so we can discuss them? Write backends in C/C++ is nonsense, unless you want to handle 10-100x requests using same hardware. If your service allows to cover the expense, go high level. Of course :-) P.S. some low level backend stuff: Kore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558196 Rwasa: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948749 Redis: https://github.com/antirez/redis https://github.com/antirez/redis (e.g. changing it in order to call the DB operations directly from same-process, without doing connections)