2 ms·

DHH is ridiculous. Ruby and Rails are nowhere near fast, in the past or present. Especially the past. http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghett

by nilved 10y ago

DHH is ridiculous. Ruby and Rails are nowhere near fast, in the past or present. Especially the past. http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto > The main Rails application that DHH created required restarting ~400 times/day. That’s a production application that can’t stay up for more than 4 minutes on average.

ubernostrum 10y ago
I don't know enough about Ruby/Rails specifically to have an opinion on whether it's a correct argument, but: Ruby and Rails are nowhere near fast Is not what's being argued. What's being argued is that "not fast" and "fast enough" are not mutually exclusive. My experience with other "slow" languages (primarily Python) is that this is true; even when the language implementation, or the application stack on top of it, is objectively "slow" compared to a similar stack in another language, often it simply makes no difference because that "slowness" gets lost in the noise of all the other, much slower, things a web application has to do. I'm reminded of a wonderful blog post from years and years ago that I unfortunately can't find, which showed a pie chart of realistic profiling data from an application -- majority of time spent in things like network I/O, talking to its database, etc. -- and had a tiny tiny little slice labeled "Template rendering". It then pointed out that according to many people (fights among Python templating systems were common then) that was the obvious place that needed to be optimized for performance, ignoring everything else in the pie chart.
pcwalton 10y ago
> The main Rails application that DHH created required restarting ~400 times/day. That’s a production application that can’t stay up for more than 4 minutes on average. That isn't a complaint about performance.
- appsappsapps 10y ago
  Curious: what is your definition of performance and how do you view this complaint?
pbreit 10y ago
As I'm sure you know, that's wrong. http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/31-myth-2-rails-is-expected-to-crash-400-timesday http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/31-myth-2-rails-is-...
- nilved 10y ago
  Your link doesn't say it's wrong; it argues semantics. The fact that unicorn-killer is a real thing real developers use for real apps should be evidence enough that Rails is a joke. Whether your app crashes after 4 minutes or you kill it after 4 minutes is irrelevant.

by nilved 10y ago

ubernostrum 10y ago

I don't know enough about Ruby/Rails specifically to have an opinion on whether it's a correct argument, but: Ruby and Rails are nowhere near fast Is not what's being argued. What's being argued is that "not fast" and "fast enough" are not mutually exclusive. My experience with other "slow" languages (primarily Python) is that this is true; even when the language implementation, or the application stack on top of it, is objectively "slow" compared to a similar stack in another language, often it simply makes no difference because that "slowness" gets lost in the noise of all the other, much slower, things a web application has to do. I'm reminded of a wonderful blog post from years and years ago that I unfortunately can't find, which showed a pie chart of realistic profiling data from an application -- majority of time spent in things like network I/O, talking to its database, etc. -- and had a tiny tiny little slice labeled "Template rendering". It then pointed out that according to many people (fights among Python templating systems were common then) that was the obvious place that needed to be optimized for performance, ignoring everything else in the pie chart.

pcwalton 10y ago

> The main Rails application that DHH created required restarting ~400 times/day. That’s a production application that can’t stay up for more than 4 minutes on average. That isn't a complaint about performance.

appsappsapps 10y ago
Curious: what is your definition of performance and how do you view this complaint?

pbreit 10y ago

As I'm sure you know, that's wrong. http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/31-myth-2-rails-is-expected-to-crash-400-timesday http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/31-myth-2-rails-is-...

nilved 10y ago
Your link doesn't say it's wrong; it argues semantics. The fact that unicorn-killer is a real thing real developers use for real apps should be evidence enough that Rails is a joke. Whether your app crashes after 4 minutes or you kill it after 4 minutes is irrelevant.