4 ms·
I guess that settles the debate about whether choice of language matters or not :) Although I can't imagine scaling has been fun (or cheap).
by jarin 16y ago
I guess that settles the debate about whether choice of language matters or not :)
Although I can't imagine scaling has been fun (or cheap).
- tommi 16y agoJeff wrote about PHP, the language does not matter: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/php-sucks-but-it-doesnt-matter.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/php-sucks-but-it-do... I've never seen language choice as a big deal. It's just a tool among many others to get a product done.
- thomasz 16y agoFrom what I've read on their blog they seem to get along fine with a moderately expensive SQL server and some chap application servers hosted in a data center. No fancy NOSQL stuff or cloud instances involved.
- spolsky 16y agoScaling has been cheap, and fun. Read about our newest data center: http://blog.serverfault.com/post/1432571770/stack-overflows-new-york-data-center http://blog.serverfault.com/post/1432571770/stack-overflows-... Read about our SQL Server hardware: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/database-upgrade/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/database-upgrade/
- carson 16y agoAre you factoring in the SQL Server licenses when you say it is cheap?
- ergo98 16y agoPerhaps they're taking advantage of BizSpark or WebSpark or a similar programs. If they aren't, the dual CPU machine they mention would require $14,000 of SQL Server licenses (if you paid list). EDIT: Actually there's a newer "Web Edition" targeted to roles like this that halves the price. So $7,000 for that server (the details are sparse, but it also sounds like you can opt into it for $15 / month / processor). That's a lot to someone trying to shoehorn a startup, but is it really a lot for real businesses? On the server end they still have tremendous headroom in the scaling up department...and that's before the Westmere-EX drops and bumps the top up quite a significant amount. You can add 1TB of memory, and four 8-core processors, to commodity Dell servers. That's before you get into the serious business.
- daviding 16y agoBizspark is a short-term program, where you invalidate yourself when you get revenue. It's a good idea but I understand it only delays those looming SQL Server per proc license costs. While I congratulate Jeff and Joel I would like to see more numbers about the 'cheap and easy' claim if possible please?
- icey 16y agoI don't think anyone pays list price for SQL server licenses. They're still not cheap, but the suggested prices are usually 10 to 20 percent high.
- ergo98 16y agoThe technology stack of StackOverflow is excellent. The scalability potential is rationally limitless. Joel, Jeff and crew did a great job. Huge kudos to them.
- wanderr 16y agoGrooveshark is bigger than StackOverflow, and our page views/server ratio is better too. And we run PHP. The language argument is BS. I will say that Microsoft SQL server is easier to scale than MySQL. But the licenses are significantly more expensive. :)
- citricsquid 16y agoYou're also much more immoral :-) Profiting off of music without licenses that grant you permission, a good business there.
- wanderr 16y agoI'd be happy to discuss the morality/legality of Grooveshark in another thread. It's not relevant to this discussion at all.