22 ms·

The End of the Redis Adventure

2282 points by kristoff_it 6y ago

derefr 6y ago
Antirez, I look forward to seeing what you do next. I especially look forward to there being more software in the world that’s architected with your unique mindset—whether it be “useful” software or not. :)
DJBunnies 6y ago
Thanks for redis.
wolco 6y ago
I would love a story on "I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years" What could he mean? What underground programming world is he talking about?
- dilandau 6y ago
  Probably the roving mobs on Twitter who occasionally brigade project issue trackers and mailing lists. Check out the master/slave post he wrote a while back. Or just the toxic nature of some open source communities, especially on Reddīt for whatever reason.
  - dexen 6y ago
    This. The underground in underground programming refers to maintaining low visibility, as to present low target silhouette. Additional benefit is not attracting too many participants that are in it for the clout, rather than for solving problems & good engineering. Open Source is no longer sufficient for software freedom; the current 'battlefield' is maintaining security from activist pressure or gradual take-over.
    - dilandau 6y ago
      This implies that a lot of the politicization of open source projects has to do with outsiders making power plays (for in group status or just because narcissism). I think this is part of it, for sure. I also think it can also manifest when parts of the community get trapped in a purity spiral, which is somewhat related but comes from within rather than without. Advice? I don't know. Stay underground and ignore the mobs, they will get bored and move on if you ignore them. Ironically, I think lowering the barriers for involvement in open source has let in a mass of people who have no fucking business being there.
      - dexen 6y ago
        Counting contributors & contributions is about as sensible as counting kLOC and pages of manual. Conway's law about software architecture implies existence of management-space CAP theorem equivalent. Communication suffers combinatorial explosion[1], and graph problems are pretty expensive to solve in meatspace. Attention is an exhaustible resource, and easily DDoSed. [edit] dilandau - please note I've carefully avoided certain spicier keywords & expressions in the previous post as to not off put a casual reader and avoid attracting quick downvotes. The couple spicy keywords in your response end up needlessly detracting a casual reader from the correct point you are making. And I'm not talking about the "fucking" adjective :) -- [1] l = (n-1)*n/2
    - jart 6y ago
      I created the Occupy Wall Street website nine years ago. Believe me when I say the lengths people will go, to try and control community projects, is downright traumatizing. I never could have imagined that same kind of nastiness would impact open source. If you don't feel comfortable engaging with the new toxic culture, you can use my underground liferaft. My liferaft isn't an operating system, but rather an attempt to help us not depend on them as much. I have no idea who's controlling GNU/Linux these days and Occupy was enough drama for one lifetime. My code has the same focus on clarity that Antirez put into his Redis codebase. My liferaft also empowers you to build and distribute tiny native portable programs (like Kilo!) using hermetically sealed tools. See https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan
      - dexen 6y ago
        Thank you for the interesting angle. >the lengths people will go, to try and control community projects I've heard that echoed a couple times in Tim Pool's discussions of the (american) OWS. Scary stuff indeed.
  - rewoi 6y ago
    This is not first time Antirez quit. 10 or 8 years ago he deleted his Twitter account with 10k followers. I think today it reached critical mass, and he does not want to be public figure anymore.
  - dilandau 6y ago
    Replying to myself to highlight antirez's own comment upthread: >Yep it's the open source, and in general the "spontaneous" development world, that happens without big money, just for hacking. This "place" once was kinda free and not observed much. Now you can't say anything, if you don't respect a good practice (LOL) people yell at you on Twitter. Even saying that commenting is a good idea is a problem. Not cool. So yeah, pretty much twitter.
- elemant 6y ago
  If you don't know it's because we don't want you to know ;)
- kissgyorgy 6y ago
  Probably the same which was the reason Guido left Python as BDFL.
- tuyguntn 6y ago
  I am assuming low level systems in commercial software systems, would like to hear from @antirez :)
- lazyjones 6y ago
  Perhaps the fact that a recent (2018, but posted here recently) blog post of his got flagged on HN after 141 comments has something to do with it...
- WJW 6y ago
  Underground as in programming for fun or as art, because you enjoy it as a hobby/subculture. Opposed to the "above ground" programming world of programming for other people (possibly also for money, but OSS is often just for recognition) where people have demands about unimportant features, terminology, coding styles, codes of conduct, etc. Sometimes they get quite aggressive about their demands, too.
koolba 6y ago
@antirez - Thank you for Redis! It's been a joy to use across so many projects. > However I never wanted to be a software maintainer. And nothing say that you have to be. There's this perverted view that anytime someone creates a popular FOSS project, they need to dedicate every waking minute to maintaining it. That's neither economically feasible nor psychologically reasonable. > Redis was the most stressful thing I did in my career, and probably also the most important. I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years, but even if it was not an easy journey, I had the privilege to work and interact with many great individuals. What is "underground programming world"?
- conjectures 6y ago
  > What is "underground programming world"? If you have to ask... ;)
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    We're all violating the first and second rules of "underground programming world"
    - Bjartr 6y ago
      I'd expect the underground programming world to index from zero.
      - kungtotte 6y ago
        The first rule would have index 0...
        m0xte 6y ago
        This is underground programming. Perhaps it's 1?
        6y ago
justaguyhere 6y ago
I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer Takes a rare person to say this, made me smile :)
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Sounds like a bit of Italian culture leaking into that phrase But don't worry Antirez, Redis is far from a bad work of art, quite the contrary.
- ilaksh 6y ago
  Personally I think it's mainly the result of having people constantly being hypercritical of your code. And I think he's proven himself to be a superior programmer. In that in almost every category of engineering skill and knowledge, he is better than 90% of the people criticizing him. If he didn't start out that way, over the years his knowledge and skills grew to make it so. But also maybe it reflects a bit that there is always some new "best practice" or something that some months ago no one heard about, but now many people are unfortunately using the adoption of as a proxy for programming skill because they are unwilling or unable to actually judge something or someone on actual merit.
- tedk-42 6y ago
  When I read that line my heart broke a little. I think he's done a great job with Redis. It goes to show sometimes that you need to let go of the thing you created for the good of the community. If I were in his position, I would have made the same move
forgingahead 6y ago
Cheers @antirez, thank you for Redis!
tinyhouse 6y ago
Thanks for Redis! I never built anything that successful but can relate that being a software maintainer is really hard and many great software developers who build great software, have a hard time with it and not finding it very enjoyable.
deleted 6y ago
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poooogles 6y ago
First and foremost thanks and good luck @antirez, your comments and pointers here have been nothing less than amazing. On a more selfish note, how is this going to affect Redis development?
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Looks like they’re already well covered with community contributions and two new (or pre-existing) maintainers?
- antirez 6y ago
  Hey! I'm not part of how the new setup will be. I don't liked to maintain, and selecting a new development setup is the most mantainer-ing thing ever :D
  - zeritna 6y ago
    Guess we'll all sleep with the fishes now. Good that you're going to guide them somewhat, I hope they carry the project forwards; good luck Salvatore! <3 We love you man
jtms 6y ago
I absolutely love Redis! I really wish more software worked as well and was as easy to use - thank you for creating this absolute gem!
binarymax 6y ago
HN hugged to death. Here's the snapshot on archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200630130517/http://antirez.com/news/133 https://web.archive.org/web/20200630130517/http://antirez.co...
- bactisme 6y ago
  I think its website need a fast cache.
  - antirez 6y ago
    Actually the web site uses Redis as the only store. And Redis is using 0.1% of CPU. The problem is that Ruby sucks at doing anything scalable. It's just a Ruby/Sinatra app. If you do that in PHP, it will work out of the box with many concurrent accesses. With Ruby not the case. There are ways to deploy it better, but it should be fast as default, which is not the case.
    - izietto 6y ago
      That sounds like a good area on which you might work! :D
    - ahmetkun 6y ago
      I guess it would be interesting if you re-wrote your website in PHP and wrote a blog post about it with the title 'Why I Moved From Ruby to PHP?'
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - tgtweak 6y ago
        Or just build a proper Ruby implementation
        alt_f6 6y ago
jihadjihad 6y ago
I just want to say thank you to antirez for Redis, for how simple, fast, and rock solid it remains to this day. Redis is one of those things that allows you to tilt your head a little on a problem--thinking of solutions in terms of set operations and lookups. A lot of people use it understandably for a cache but it is so much more than that...for me it's introduced an entirely new way of composing solutions to problems. Cheers for all you've done--you've shown at least one programmer that there is still a place for small, elegant design that will stand the test of time.
pietromenna 6y ago
Thanks @antirez!
deleted 6y ago
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hetspookjee 6y ago
@antirez, thank you for Redis. It is my favorite database and I often refer to it as one of the most successful OS projects that I know of.
atum47 6y ago
I know exactly what you mean when you say you wanna be a software developer, not a software maintainer
JamesSwift 6y ago
Dang. I say this frequently both online and when discussing system design with newer devs, but will repeat here: of all the production issues I've debugged, the culprit has has never been redis. In fact, redis has been a critical piece of achieving cost-effective scaling. It is one of only two pieces of software (along with postgres) that I blindly recommend without any caveats. From following along here and on your blog about how you approach things and think about the software, I think its clear that you and your vision for the project are a large factor of why it has been so reliable. Thank you antirez!
- wokwokwok 6y ago
  Redis is simple. Good. Has a nice api. Has good libraries. Single threadsed. Extremely hard to scale. Impossibly difficult to cluster in containers because it uses hard coded ips to address nodes. Performs poorly with large payloads. Doesn't run on windows properly. Is extremely expensive as a hosted service (orders of magnitude in some cases, eg. azure). You'll love it until you don't. The scaling and clustering story is not nearly as nice as the quick start. It's definitely worth recommending... with caveats.
  - kristoff_it 6y ago
    > Is extremely expensive as a hosted service (orders of magnitude in some cases, eg. azure). That seems to me an argument that should be pointed at cloud providers rather than Redis itself ;)
    - wokwokwok 6y ago
      The point being that clustering redis is actually very difficult to do at all, never mind in a way that scales. This would be a significant down side to using redis at all, except you can get away with not caring if you out source the problem with your credit card.
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    Redis works well until the point it doesn't - like a lot of other tools. A half-ton pickup truck works well until you need to haul bigger loads. At some point, you either need to haul smaller loads or change to a different, bigger truck.
rooam-dev 6y ago
> ... what I write is useful just as a side effect, but my first goal is to make something that is, in some way, beautiful ... I love beautiful code too, however if it's not useful, then the beauty fades quickly for me. What's the point?
p2501 6y ago
As a redis user for more than 8 years, i just want to say thank you. I had embedded redis 2.8 on small IoT system with 200mhz/64Mb of ram to huge cluster as a message bus (redis-as-kafka pattern). Want a shared memory with a type system? Use redis. Want a queue? Use redis. Want something easy to mock, with an API in all major ecosystems? Use redis. Thanks for your work :)
stephc_int13 6y ago
Antirez is an inspiration, for me at least. Not only because of what he achieved, Redis is a very nice piece of tech, but also because of his programming style.
hkt 6y ago
I can think of few other programmers who have contributed so much, and ever fewer who have signed off in a way that was so filled with dignity. What a guy.
leesalminen 6y ago
Thank you for such a great piece of software, Antirez. Redis has been an integral piece of my stack for years now. I, too, am leaving the company I founded soon and have mixed emotions about it. I certainly don’t enjoy the monotonous nature of maintaining software and yearn for those early creative days. Best of luck to you in the future! Looking forward to seeing what you create next.
mxyzpt1k 6y ago
Thank you. Redis has been the nervous system of my main project for the last eight years.
kemonocode 6y ago
Redis has given me more than the occasional headache when it comes to its lax security defaults and how since it's going to be local then why bother changing them? But there's no denying that when it works, it works damnably well. So for that, I give you my thanks and good luck in whatever endeavors you find yourself involved in!
fit2rule 6y ago
@antirez - thank you so much for your work, and for your patience with dealing with us all over the years. I have benefited greatly from your willingness to share your engineering skills, and you are one of the most respected programmers in my list of people to follow online. So, onwards and upwards to new things. Perhaps now you have time for my favourite of your projects, LOAD81? :)
rantypress 6y ago
Just be an Italian dude, or Sicilliano, Antirezzzzano, whatever, you're great, thanks for Redis Don't need to do much more. Just be You man. Live on. You are beautiful. We thank you for Redis
gwittel 6y ago
Thank you! In building Redis you’ve contributed some wonderful software to the world. In addition, I’ve always found your blogs to be interesting reads. I’ve also learned by the examples you set both from a coding perspective (reading your wcode), and engineering perspective. Thank you again, looking forward to whatever is next!
leonardteo 6y ago
I am struck by how beautifully expressed this letter is. @antirez, thank you so much. It's really great to see when someone who is totally honest with themselves and what sparks joy in their life/career, and is also respectful to all the people who depend on the work/artifact. So much respect. Thanks again.
Aeolun 6y ago
The word that always comes to mind reading these posts is bittersweet. On one hand, it’s sad that they’re leaving, and/or that circumstances made the job less enjoyable than it would otherwise be. But on the other hand, I cannot help but be happy for one who has thrown off the chains and is now free to pursue their dreams again. Best of luck wherever life may take you!
jpxw 6y ago
The fact that one person can (mostly on their own) create a tool as widely-used and respected as Redis is very inspirational to me. Good luck for the future!
- JosefAssad 6y ago
  If you flip that around, it's possible that being driven by one man was a contributing factor to redis' success. Design by committee and all that.
tav 6y ago
Over the last decade, Redis has been my go-to example of beautifully written code. Thank you for such an amazing creation @antirez, and best of luck for whatever you do next.
draw_down 6y ago
Yeah, I don’t see how maintaining a project like that has any long-term appeal. You’re not the upstart anymore, you’re the government. You stand to lose more by mistakes that affect reliability than you stand to gain by changing or adding things. I’m at a similar point in my life, though of course I’m much less influential than him. I’m getting to the end of the most stressful and most important part of my career, with no desire to do something similar again, without a clear idea of what’s next.
eric_b 6y ago
So they're moving to a new "community based", "light governance" model. [1] There are plenty of problems with BDFL-style projects, but I think there are a lot of advantages too. Redis is unique in my experience in that it works the way you'd expect - it doesn't cause outages, it is fast, and it has a vanishingly small number of gotchas. The feature set is well curated and for the most part fits together cohesively. The most important thing Antirez did, in my opinion, was to say "No" to things. No to new features that didn't make sense. No to PRs that didn't fit the vision. Saying no is one of the most important jobs of a project maintainer. It's a thankless task that upsets a lot of people. But it's critical for a project to stay successful and achieve the leader's vision. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I predict after a few years of this new model we'll see weird features, more stability issues, and performance regressions as more cooks enter the kitchen. Time will tell. [1] https://redislabs.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/ https://redislabs.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/
- aboringusername 6y ago
  It's an interesting proposition. Whether it's Python, Redis, Laravel or Linux itself, a lot of software projects have been driven primarily by singular people and their decisions which shape the project over a period of time. One example that was mentioned in this thread was the whole "master" thing going on. Is Torvalds really going to get involved in that? Most likely no, and that's a decision he's free to make. I worry in the future, after he's gone, depending on the model being used, we'll see more politics in software projects where Linux itself gets dragged into these things and doesn't have a single guy to say NO! Or maybe you see an old white guy in charge of Linux and that can be considered a problem in itself, I'm sure many would love to see some change there and finally overrule Torvalds' decisions. So in reality, we're seeing a slow shift away from BDFL type situations, and in the near term future, very few (what I consider influential) projects will remain with that setup.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    You already see this happening, on the IoT world there are plenty of competing FOSS OS clones, some of them POSIX based, common to all of them is the use of non-copyleft licenses.
stunt 6y ago
He shared some of his struggles a while ago: http://antirez.com/news/129 http://antirez.com/news/129 Great work @antirez! Thanks for your dedication. Stepping back as maintainer and giving your support from the Redis Labs advisory board is nothing less than what you did so far. It's sensible that you don't want to make plans about the rest of your time right now. Cheers
wildchild 6y ago
RIP.
knadh 6y ago
Redis is an astonishingly good piece of software. I've always found its beauty to be the reflection of your philosophies, @antirez. Thank you. Here's to you finding joy in your pursuits!
foobar_ 6y ago
Is it possible to build software without maintenance ? I think we need a new model for software ... where original build is self-sufficient but you have any number of remixes. Right to implement a basic feature to an existing software there is too much code that touches way too many files.
Apofis 6y ago
"In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer." Of course an Italian programmer would say this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Tim25659 6y ago
Hi, Antirez thanks for the Redis.. even though I have not used redis in real time.. some what I got attracted into redis and when I have attended redis conference in Bangalore got to know much about redis and got a chance to see and listen your talk.. all the best for your future hopefully you will come back with new thing where I can learn more from you.. partially missing you from github mail nofications which I didn't thought....all the best
antirez 6y ago
Ok, so many thank you here, thanks! It's very nice to read the comments here. But I hope to interact more on HN, since basically the idea is to write more blog posts, write more OSS software too. Just totally random :D I'll just do whatever every morning I want to do for a long time. Then maybe I'll find a new long term interest.
- gallamine 6y ago
  Thank you for your work!
- atonse 6y ago
  Thank you for all your work on Redis. As you already know, it powers so much of the internet. Wishing you the best in whatever you do next.
- adverbly 6y ago
  You've got at least one eagerly awaiting reader right here! Staying tuned :)
- xsace 6y ago
  Thank you for your dedication. You will not be forgotten
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Thanks so much! I did have a post that basically said "I relate," but it wasn't popular (I guess it came across as self-promoting. My apologies). In any case, I can relate, and completely support you in your future endeavors. I am not a redis user, but I have seen nothing but good said about it.
- portroyal 6y ago
  Thank you! As people have commented, your ability to stick to your convictions, even under fire, is admirable. I look forward to your blog posts.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  You are a unique kind of hero of a unique age.
elliotpo 6y ago
thanks and congrats. i always admired your approach to language, whether computer or human intended. good luck.
seemslegit 6y ago
I'm grateful to Antirez for inventing Redis in the first place and putting in all the great work he's done since. However I'm worried about the implications of this change for the continued existence of Redis as open-source in the public-goods sense. What does it mean that Yossi and Oran are taking over as maintainers - are they doing so in their personal capacity or as employees of Redis Labs ? How are potential conflicts between the business interests of Redis Labs and the interests of the community to be identified and resolved ? Who will own the copyright over the newly submitted code and are there any safeguards against future versions of Redis being released under licenses more restrictive than the current one ?
tuananh 6y ago
redis complexity has been increasing a lot lately (module, stream, multi-thread,...) not that i don't like it but antirez has been hesitated about adding those before.
acje 6y ago
Simon Wardley “system of theft” comes to mind. This is probably a good move. Keep on creating!
da39a3ee 6y ago
Thank you for writing this antirez, I think I'll remember it as a statement of some principles that I like to think I aspire to also: like many people here I guess, I would describe myself as someone who loves writing software, and in my own small way I've also tried to avoid being dragged into team/project management because that is not what I seek out of a lifetime involved with code. And, yes, I do like to think of writing code as a creative activity / form of expression. I also need to study your C code more! Perhaps I'll look at the early redis commits.
bigtones 6y ago
Thanks Antirez, Redis powers my startup and we could not have done it without you ! You and your beautiful release notes essays will be missed.
jrochkind1 6y ago
While a very different circumstance, the pull between "I write code in order to express myself" and being an "artist" vs. "useful" and the drudgery of maintenance reminds me of famous rubyist _why and why he stopped doing stuff in the community. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/why-a-tale-of-a-post-modern-genius/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/why-a-tale-of-a-pos... https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit/ https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit...
slim 6y ago
Recently I published videos in Italian language explaining technological concepts to the general public where are the videos ? I can't find them
- slim 6y ago
  nevermind : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDG9vOcmgwlslJJpCWjqOg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDG9vOcmgwlslJJpCWjqOg
lame88 6y ago
I think you've been a role model in how to build and maintain a popular software project while keeping the spirit of FOSS and promoting a positive community around it. I look forward to seeing what you get up to next.
the_arun 6y ago
Honestly this change is great for Salvatore. Hope they find another bright idea and inspire the programming community! All the best!
antirez 6y ago
Moved the blog in a more decent server :D Faster now. But DNS propagation will take some time. Yet most of the new requests will go in the new server so also the old one will be faster.
progx 6y ago
Building a thing is fun, maintain not. Especially if it is a tool, a tool for a specific problem and it solved it. But people want more and more functionality. Then you work on things you never wanted to do. You take the exit, i can fully understand it.
rubyfan 6y ago
> In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer. words of wisdom right there
- eplanit 6y ago
  It's egotistical humblebrag.
root_axis 6y ago
redis is really a joy to work with. truly, thank you.
tpae 6y ago
> In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer.
orasis 6y ago
“I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer.”
netvarun 6y ago
Thank you very much for all your time and effort in starting and shepherding this very important project (and also in finding a great home to continue the legacy). Redis was (and continues to be a very integral) part of my startup's stack. We've also extended the redis protocol for all sorts of custom hacks. I will miss your humility and patience in communicating the roadmap, technicalities and all around community work. A great all-round example for all of us to follow. Thanks so much - and eagerly looking forward to your next set of projects!
dzonga 6y ago
thanks to @antirez, for the elegant data structures in redis. literally, cs concepts transferred to practicality, when I learned redis
avmich 6y ago
It's long past due that we should move to software which isn't maintained - because there's nothing to do. Adding features could be done either by writing a new one - because the requests don't really fit the meaning of old one, the creators saw that and rejected; fixing bugs - yes, fixing bugs may remain, but are there many bugs in, say, TEX code? We don't yet know how to write a completed software well - the one which isn't updated on Github for years yet nobody calls it stale or outdated.
- akrain 6y ago
  I know at least one software that was complete - hasn'tbeen updated in a long time and I still useit. It's Winamp.
- shurane 6y ago
  I think video games fit in the area of 'completed software'. Most video games today rarely see updates a few years after they're released. And older video games were on read only mediums, so you would hope whatever you release is very stable and feature complete.
niftylettuce 6y ago
Absolutely love your work @antirez. Also appreciate your blog. Using Redis to handle greylisting on a custom Node.js backed email forwarding service: https://github.com/forwardemail/free-email-forwarding/blob/08a6278f866a441e4906af249650d86b54fb9ed6/index.js#L588-L592 https://github.com/forwardemail/free-email-forwarding/blob/0... Also using it for job scheduling (with clustering support on top of Bull): https://github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net/blob/master/bull.js https://github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net/blob/master... So many things you can do with Redis :tada:
_wldu 6y ago
I first met antirez during the Engine Yard Hamming Distance contest. Does anyone else remember that? DJB, and his team, won it. It was a lot of fun to participate. http://oldblog.antirez.com/post/some-math-about-the-engineyard-contest.html http://oldblog.antirez.com/post/some-math-about-the-engineya... I wish companies would have contests such as this more often. I think it would be a great way to find and hire really good people.
franciscop 6y ago
Redis is one of the best pieces of software of the last 10 years, thank you so much for creating it and maintaining it! It has been incredibly useful for me and thousands (millions?) of developers.
pjscott 6y ago
When some software I was responsible for started melting down under a load 10x bigger than it could handle, I was able to fix it by doing an emergency rewrite of the data storage part using Redis with Lua scripting. This was back when that feature was still experimental, so I was using unstable tarballs in production -- and yet everything worked perfectly! The emergency was fixed in a single long day. It was a miracle. Thanks for all the great things you've done with Redis! "Beautiful" describes it well.
reggieband 6y ago
There are only a few pieces of infrastructure that I haven't found myself cursing at, redis and haproxy are among them. They both are the closest to set-it-and-forget-it I have worked with. No doubt the leadership of Antirez played some part in that. I hope the project can continue to reach the bar he set.
grezql 6y ago
Thanks for all! Good luck in future
luord 6y ago
As someone who loves programming and dreads most of project management (and being anywhere close to a limelight nowadays), I understand. Redis is an awesome piece of software and who knows, maybe this'll free antirez to create another awesome tool.
jjoe 6y ago
I've made a little bit of money thanks to Redis [0]. All I did was build integration for Redis on cPanel. So that speaks to the great quality brand of Redis. Thank you and Godspeed! [0] https://www.unixy.net/redis https://www.unixy.net/redis
blfr 6y ago
My co-founder and I had successfully launched two of the major web 2.0 services of the Italian web. What are these services?
- angott 6y ago
  One of them was LLOOGG: https://github.com/antirez/lloogg https://github.com/antirez/lloogg, which used to be at lloogg.com but it seems like the domain was not renewed. I remember using it on my personal website long before I had even heard of Redis, it was a nice analytics tool for small sites with little traffic.
- antirez 6y ago
  Segnalo and Oknotizie. Segnalo was similar to delicious, Oknotizie similar to Reddit/Digg. Later in order to create the first service, LLOOGG, I had to write Redis.
marktangotango 6y ago
> I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years, I find this to be a provocative statement. Does anyone know what he means?
abraae 6y ago
> In eleven years I hope I was able to provide a point of view that certain persons understood, about an alternative way to write software. I hope that such point of view will be taken into consideration in the evolution of Redis. To me this epitomises what Bill Gates meant when he said "Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.". I just wish I had something to show for my last decade that had as much impact as Redis!
Gummaluri 6y ago
Coincidentally was reading an old discussion, few days ago, of Salvatore joining Redis labs fulltime from Pivotal labs. The discussion can be found here [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9890824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9890824
davidw 6y ago
It's been pretty cool to see that grow. I recall chatting with antirez about it on IRC ages ago when he was still working on the initial idea.
chrisweekly 6y ago
Congrats and thank you, Salvatore (@antirez), for producing such a beautiful, powerful, useful and important piece of software... and for articulating and demonstrating such passionate commitment to a personal vision that is so very rare, valuable, and inspiring... and for your responsible stewardship of its maintainance even when it came at the cost of your personal preferences. You're a class act, and I have no doubt you'll be successful with whatever comes next. Hats off for doing it right! Bravo!
VeejayRampay 6y ago
grazie mille Salvatore
bbulkow 6y ago
My thought here. I'm not exactly a disinterested party because I built my own key value store company (possibly the wrong way but that's a different story). I have a huge respect for Redis, and Antirez, but I have to say my respect doesn't include RedisLabs. They're the ones who started a commercial endevour to capitalize on Redis initially without Antirez, and then later offered him a position. They're the ones that Kyle@Jepsen says is making claims about ACID, not Antirez. I always heard that Clustering was a feature Antirez was very reluctant about. I hope Redis is, fundamentally, taken away from RedisLabs. Antirez, you say you want to express through code and open source, and I can't square that with your association with RedisLabs. You've been taking their money for quite a few years now to allow them to put up a billboard saying "the home of redis". I'm going to stop right there. I've cut my own path through the wild jungle that's Open Source, and it's not yours, and I respect the years you put in to make the product with your vision. I'm sure there are some other first coders of foundational databases on this list, but it's a small club. As an employee of RedisLabs, I don't think you are free to say what you'd like to say, I hope you follow whatever path does allow you to freely express in the future. Good luck always.
cjhanks 6y ago
What a beautiful conclusion for him on such a beautiful project. This man clearly loves the art of programming... so much, that he would give up power, just to pursue it again. Thanks for the wonderful blog posts (over the years) and products.
darepublic 6y ago
Redis is a pleasure to work with
deleted 6y ago
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blobster 6y ago
Thank you for your amazing work. Redis has been by far the most dependable component of my tech stack and it's opened up a whole new way of thinking about data. Best of luck in your future endeavors!
grupthink 6y ago
Thank you, @antirez! I have a live stock market site that heavily relies on redis for streaming data, tracking leaderboards, and message passing. It would have been difficult without Redis. You really affected my life. Big hug to you, Salvatore! I hope you find your next inspiration, and bless us with your next masterpiece. :)
bsubramaniam91 6y ago
We love redis. Thanks for the creating and contributing so long. Good luck @antirez.
pietroppeter 6y ago
a very nice interview (in Italian) published last May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgT6rXytKds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgT6rXytKds Towards the end he anticipates what is now public.

2282 points by kristoff_it 6y ago

Antirez, I look forward to seeing what you do next. I especially look forward to there being more software in the world that’s architected with your unique mindset—whether it be “useful” software or not. :)

DJBunnies 6y ago

Thanks for redis.

wolco 6y ago

I would love a story on "I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years" What could he mean? What underground programming world is he talking about?

dilandau 6y ago
Probably the roving mobs on Twitter who occasionally brigade project issue trackers and mailing lists. Check out the master/slave post he wrote a while back. Or just the toxic nature of some open source communities, especially on Reddīt for whatever reason.
- dexen 6y ago
  This. The underground in underground programming refers to maintaining low visibility, as to present low target silhouette. Additional benefit is not attracting too many participants that are in it for the clout, rather than for solving problems & good engineering. Open Source is no longer sufficient for software freedom; the current 'battlefield' is maintaining security from activist pressure or gradual take-over.
  - dilandau 6y ago
    This implies that a lot of the politicization of open source projects has to do with outsiders making power plays (for in group status or just because narcissism). I think this is part of it, for sure. I also think it can also manifest when parts of the community get trapped in a purity spiral, which is somewhat related but comes from within rather than without. Advice? I don't know. Stay underground and ignore the mobs, they will get bored and move on if you ignore them. Ironically, I think lowering the barriers for involvement in open source has let in a mass of people who have no fucking business being there.
    - dexen 6y ago
      Counting contributors & contributions is about as sensible as counting kLOC and pages of manual. Conway's law about software architecture implies existence of management-space CAP theorem equivalent. Communication suffers combinatorial explosion[1], and graph problems are pretty expensive to solve in meatspace. Attention is an exhaustible resource, and easily DDoSed. [edit] dilandau - please note I've carefully avoided certain spicier keywords & expressions in the previous post as to not off put a casual reader and avoid attracting quick downvotes. The couple spicy keywords in your response end up needlessly detracting a casual reader from the correct point you are making. And I'm not talking about the "fucking" adjective :) -- [1] l = (n-1)*n/2
  - jart 6y ago
    I created the Occupy Wall Street website nine years ago. Believe me when I say the lengths people will go, to try and control community projects, is downright traumatizing. I never could have imagined that same kind of nastiness would impact open source. If you don't feel comfortable engaging with the new toxic culture, you can use my underground liferaft. My liferaft isn't an operating system, but rather an attempt to help us not depend on them as much. I have no idea who's controlling GNU/Linux these days and Occupy was enough drama for one lifetime. My code has the same focus on clarity that Antirez put into his Redis codebase. My liferaft also empowers you to build and distribute tiny native portable programs (like Kilo!) using hermetically sealed tools. See https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan
    - dexen 6y ago
      Thank you for the interesting angle. >the lengths people will go, to try and control community projects I've heard that echoed a couple times in Tim Pool's discussions of the (american) OWS. Scary stuff indeed.
- rewoi 6y ago
  This is not first time Antirez quit. 10 or 8 years ago he deleted his Twitter account with 10k followers. I think today it reached critical mass, and he does not want to be public figure anymore.
- dilandau 6y ago
  Replying to myself to highlight antirez's own comment upthread: >Yep it's the open source, and in general the "spontaneous" development world, that happens without big money, just for hacking. This "place" once was kinda free and not observed much. Now you can't say anything, if you don't respect a good practice (LOL) people yell at you on Twitter. Even saying that commenting is a good idea is a problem. Not cool. So yeah, pretty much twitter.
elemant 6y ago
If you don't know it's because we don't want you to know ;)
kissgyorgy 6y ago
Probably the same which was the reason Guido left Python as BDFL.
tuyguntn 6y ago
I am assuming low level systems in commercial software systems, would like to hear from @antirez :)
lazyjones 6y ago
Perhaps the fact that a recent (2018, but posted here recently) blog post of his got flagged on HN after 141 comments has something to do with it...
WJW 6y ago
Underground as in programming for fun or as art, because you enjoy it as a hobby/subculture. Opposed to the "above ground" programming world of programming for other people (possibly also for money, but OSS is often just for recognition) where people have demands about unimportant features, terminology, coding styles, codes of conduct, etc. Sometimes they get quite aggressive about their demands, too.

koolba 6y ago

@antirez - Thank you for Redis! It's been a joy to use across so many projects. > However I never wanted to be a software maintainer. And nothing say that you have to be. There's this perverted view that anytime someone creates a popular FOSS project, they need to dedicate every waking minute to maintaining it. That's neither economically feasible nor psychologically reasonable. > Redis was the most stressful thing I did in my career, and probably also the most important. I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years, but even if it was not an easy journey, I had the privilege to work and interact with many great individuals. What is "underground programming world"?

conjectures 6y ago
> What is "underground programming world"? If you have to ask... ;)
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  We're all violating the first and second rules of "underground programming world"
  - Bjartr 6y ago
    I'd expect the underground programming world to index from zero.
    - kungtotte 6y ago
      The first rule would have index 0...
      - m0xte 6y ago
        This is underground programming. Perhaps it's 1?
        6y ago

justaguyhere 6y ago

I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer Takes a rare person to say this, made me smile :)

raverbashing 6y ago
Sounds like a bit of Italian culture leaking into that phrase But don't worry Antirez, Redis is far from a bad work of art, quite the contrary.
ilaksh 6y ago
Personally I think it's mainly the result of having people constantly being hypercritical of your code. And I think he's proven himself to be a superior programmer. In that in almost every category of engineering skill and knowledge, he is better than 90% of the people criticizing him. If he didn't start out that way, over the years his knowledge and skills grew to make it so. But also maybe it reflects a bit that there is always some new "best practice" or something that some months ago no one heard about, but now many people are unfortunately using the adoption of as a proxy for programming skill because they are unwilling or unable to actually judge something or someone on actual merit.
tedk-42 6y ago
When I read that line my heart broke a little. I think he's done a great job with Redis. It goes to show sometimes that you need to let go of the thing you created for the good of the community. If I were in his position, I would have made the same move

forgingahead 6y ago

Cheers @antirez, thank you for Redis!

tinyhouse 6y ago

Thanks for Redis! I never built anything that successful but can relate that being a software maintainer is really hard and many great software developers who build great software, have a hard time with it and not finding it very enjoyable.

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poooogles 6y ago

First and foremost thanks and good luck @antirez, your comments and pointers here have been nothing less than amazing. On a more selfish note, how is this going to affect Redis development?

Aeolun 6y ago
Looks like they’re already well covered with community contributions and two new (or pre-existing) maintainers?
antirez 6y ago
Hey! I'm not part of how the new setup will be. I don't liked to maintain, and selecting a new development setup is the most mantainer-ing thing ever :D
- zeritna 6y ago
  Guess we'll all sleep with the fishes now. Good that you're going to guide them somewhat, I hope they carry the project forwards; good luck Salvatore! <3 We love you man

jtms 6y ago

I absolutely love Redis! I really wish more software worked as well and was as easy to use - thank you for creating this absolute gem!

binarymax 6y ago

HN hugged to death. Here's the snapshot on archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200630130517/http://antirez.com/news/133 https://web.archive.org/web/20200630130517/http://antirez.co...

bactisme 6y ago
I think its website need a fast cache.
- antirez 6y ago
  Actually the web site uses Redis as the only store. And Redis is using 0.1% of CPU. The problem is that Ruby sucks at doing anything scalable. It's just a Ruby/Sinatra app. If you do that in PHP, it will work out of the box with many concurrent accesses. With Ruby not the case. There are ways to deploy it better, but it should be fast as default, which is not the case.
  - izietto 6y ago
    That sounds like a good area on which you might work! :D
  - ahmetkun 6y ago
    I guess it would be interesting if you re-wrote your website in PHP and wrote a blog post about it with the title 'Why I Moved From Ruby to PHP?'
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - tgtweak 6y ago
      Or just build a proper Ruby implementation
      - alt_f6 6y ago

jihadjihad 6y ago

I just want to say thank you to antirez for Redis, for how simple, fast, and rock solid it remains to this day. Redis is one of those things that allows you to tilt your head a little on a problem--thinking of solutions in terms of set operations and lookups. A lot of people use it understandably for a cache but it is so much more than that...for me it's introduced an entirely new way of composing solutions to problems. Cheers for all you've done--you've shown at least one programmer that there is still a place for small, elegant design that will stand the test of time.

pietromenna 6y ago

Thanks @antirez!

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hetspookjee 6y ago

@antirez, thank you for Redis. It is my favorite database and I often refer to it as one of the most successful OS projects that I know of.

atum47 6y ago

I know exactly what you mean when you say you wanna be a software developer, not a software maintainer

JamesSwift 6y ago

Dang. I say this frequently both online and when discussing system design with newer devs, but will repeat here: of all the production issues I've debugged, the culprit has has never been redis. In fact, redis has been a critical piece of achieving cost-effective scaling. It is one of only two pieces of software (along with postgres) that I blindly recommend without any caveats. From following along here and on your blog about how you approach things and think about the software, I think its clear that you and your vision for the project are a large factor of why it has been so reliable. Thank you antirez!

wokwokwok 6y ago
Redis is simple. Good. Has a nice api. Has good libraries. Single threadsed. Extremely hard to scale. Impossibly difficult to cluster in containers because it uses hard coded ips to address nodes. Performs poorly with large payloads. Doesn't run on windows properly. Is extremely expensive as a hosted service (orders of magnitude in some cases, eg. azure). You'll love it until you don't. The scaling and clustering story is not nearly as nice as the quick start. It's definitely worth recommending... with caveats.
- kristoff_it 6y ago
  > Is extremely expensive as a hosted service (orders of magnitude in some cases, eg. azure). That seems to me an argument that should be pointed at cloud providers rather than Redis itself ;)
  - wokwokwok 6y ago
    The point being that clustering redis is actually very difficult to do at all, never mind in a way that scales. This would be a significant down side to using redis at all, except you can get away with not caring if you out source the problem with your credit card.
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  Redis works well until the point it doesn't - like a lot of other tools. A half-ton pickup truck works well until you need to haul bigger loads. At some point, you either need to haul smaller loads or change to a different, bigger truck.

rooam-dev 6y ago

> ... what I write is useful just as a side effect, but my first goal is to make something that is, in some way, beautiful ... I love beautiful code too, however if it's not useful, then the beauty fades quickly for me. What's the point?

p2501 6y ago

As a redis user for more than 8 years, i just want to say thank you. I had embedded redis 2.8 on small IoT system with 200mhz/64Mb of ram to huge cluster as a message bus (redis-as-kafka pattern). Want a shared memory with a type system? Use redis. Want a queue? Use redis. Want something easy to mock, with an API in all major ecosystems? Use redis. Thanks for your work :)

stephc_int13 6y ago

Antirez is an inspiration, for me at least. Not only because of what he achieved, Redis is a very nice piece of tech, but also because of his programming style.

hkt 6y ago

I can think of few other programmers who have contributed so much, and ever fewer who have signed off in a way that was so filled with dignity. What a guy.

leesalminen 6y ago

Thank you for such a great piece of software, Antirez. Redis has been an integral piece of my stack for years now. I, too, am leaving the company I founded soon and have mixed emotions about it. I certainly don’t enjoy the monotonous nature of maintaining software and yearn for those early creative days. Best of luck to you in the future! Looking forward to seeing what you create next.

mxyzpt1k 6y ago

Thank you. Redis has been the nervous system of my main project for the last eight years.

kemonocode 6y ago

Redis has given me more than the occasional headache when it comes to its lax security defaults and how since it's going to be local then why bother changing them? But there's no denying that when it works, it works damnably well. So for that, I give you my thanks and good luck in whatever endeavors you find yourself involved in!

fit2rule 6y ago

@antirez - thank you so much for your work, and for your patience with dealing with us all over the years. I have benefited greatly from your willingness to share your engineering skills, and you are one of the most respected programmers in my list of people to follow online. So, onwards and upwards to new things. Perhaps now you have time for my favourite of your projects, LOAD81? :)

rantypress 6y ago

Just be an Italian dude, or Sicilliano, Antirezzzzano, whatever, you're great, thanks for Redis Don't need to do much more. Just be You man. Live on. You are beautiful. We thank you for Redis

gwittel 6y ago

Thank you! In building Redis you’ve contributed some wonderful software to the world. In addition, I’ve always found your blogs to be interesting reads. I’ve also learned by the examples you set both from a coding perspective (reading your wcode), and engineering perspective. Thank you again, looking forward to whatever is next!

leonardteo 6y ago

I am struck by how beautifully expressed this letter is. @antirez, thank you so much. It's really great to see when someone who is totally honest with themselves and what sparks joy in their life/career, and is also respectful to all the people who depend on the work/artifact. So much respect. Thanks again.

Aeolun 6y ago

The word that always comes to mind reading these posts is bittersweet. On one hand, it’s sad that they’re leaving, and/or that circumstances made the job less enjoyable than it would otherwise be. But on the other hand, I cannot help but be happy for one who has thrown off the chains and is now free to pursue their dreams again. Best of luck wherever life may take you!

jpxw 6y ago

The fact that one person can (mostly on their own) create a tool as widely-used and respected as Redis is very inspirational to me. Good luck for the future!

JosefAssad 6y ago
If you flip that around, it's possible that being driven by one man was a contributing factor to redis' success. Design by committee and all that.

tav 6y ago

Over the last decade, Redis has been my go-to example of beautifully written code. Thank you for such an amazing creation @antirez, and best of luck for whatever you do next.

draw_down 6y ago

Yeah, I don’t see how maintaining a project like that has any long-term appeal. You’re not the upstart anymore, you’re the government. You stand to lose more by mistakes that affect reliability than you stand to gain by changing or adding things. I’m at a similar point in my life, though of course I’m much less influential than him. I’m getting to the end of the most stressful and most important part of my career, with no desire to do something similar again, without a clear idea of what’s next.

eric_b 6y ago

So they're moving to a new "community based", "light governance" model. [1] There are plenty of problems with BDFL-style projects, but I think there are a lot of advantages too. Redis is unique in my experience in that it works the way you'd expect - it doesn't cause outages, it is fast, and it has a vanishingly small number of gotchas. The feature set is well curated and for the most part fits together cohesively. The most important thing Antirez did, in my opinion, was to say "No" to things. No to new features that didn't make sense. No to PRs that didn't fit the vision. Saying no is one of the most important jobs of a project maintainer. It's a thankless task that upsets a lot of people. But it's critical for a project to stay successful and achieve the leader's vision. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I predict after a few years of this new model we'll see weird features, more stability issues, and performance regressions as more cooks enter the kitchen. Time will tell. [1] https://redislabs.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/ https://redislabs.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/

aboringusername 6y ago
It's an interesting proposition. Whether it's Python, Redis, Laravel or Linux itself, a lot of software projects have been driven primarily by singular people and their decisions which shape the project over a period of time. One example that was mentioned in this thread was the whole "master" thing going on. Is Torvalds really going to get involved in that? Most likely no, and that's a decision he's free to make. I worry in the future, after he's gone, depending on the model being used, we'll see more politics in software projects where Linux itself gets dragged into these things and doesn't have a single guy to say NO! Or maybe you see an old white guy in charge of Linux and that can be considered a problem in itself, I'm sure many would love to see some change there and finally overrule Torvalds' decisions. So in reality, we're seeing a slow shift away from BDFL type situations, and in the near term future, very few (what I consider influential) projects will remain with that setup.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  You already see this happening, on the IoT world there are plenty of competing FOSS OS clones, some of them POSIX based, common to all of them is the use of non-copyleft licenses.

stunt 6y ago

He shared some of his struggles a while ago: http://antirez.com/news/129 http://antirez.com/news/129 Great work @antirez! Thanks for your dedication. Stepping back as maintainer and giving your support from the Redis Labs advisory board is nothing less than what you did so far. It's sensible that you don't want to make plans about the rest of your time right now. Cheers

wildchild 6y ago

RIP.

knadh 6y ago

Redis is an astonishingly good piece of software. I've always found its beauty to be the reflection of your philosophies, @antirez. Thank you. Here's to you finding joy in your pursuits!

foobar_ 6y ago

Is it possible to build software without maintenance ? I think we need a new model for software ... where original build is self-sufficient but you have any number of remixes. Right to implement a basic feature to an existing software there is too much code that touches way too many files.

Apofis 6y ago

"In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer." Of course an Italian programmer would say this.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Tim25659 6y ago

Hi, Antirez thanks for the Redis.. even though I have not used redis in real time.. some what I got attracted into redis and when I have attended redis conference in Bangalore got to know much about redis and got a chance to see and listen your talk.. all the best for your future hopefully you will come back with new thing where I can learn more from you.. partially missing you from github mail nofications which I didn't thought....all the best

antirez 6y ago

Ok, so many thank you here, thanks! It's very nice to read the comments here. But I hope to interact more on HN, since basically the idea is to write more blog posts, write more OSS software too. Just totally random :D I'll just do whatever every morning I want to do for a long time. Then maybe I'll find a new long term interest.

gallamine 6y ago
Thank you for your work!
atonse 6y ago
Thank you for all your work on Redis. As you already know, it powers so much of the internet. Wishing you the best in whatever you do next.
adverbly 6y ago
You've got at least one eagerly awaiting reader right here! Staying tuned :)
xsace 6y ago
Thank you for your dedication. You will not be forgotten
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Thanks so much! I did have a post that basically said "I relate," but it wasn't popular (I guess it came across as self-promoting. My apologies). In any case, I can relate, and completely support you in your future endeavors. I am not a redis user, but I have seen nothing but good said about it.
portroyal 6y ago
Thank you! As people have commented, your ability to stick to your convictions, even under fire, is admirable. I look forward to your blog posts.
seemslegit 6y ago
You are a unique kind of hero of a unique age.

elliotpo 6y ago

thanks and congrats. i always admired your approach to language, whether computer or human intended. good luck.

seemslegit 6y ago

I'm grateful to Antirez for inventing Redis in the first place and putting in all the great work he's done since. However I'm worried about the implications of this change for the continued existence of Redis as open-source in the public-goods sense. What does it mean that Yossi and Oran are taking over as maintainers - are they doing so in their personal capacity or as employees of Redis Labs ? How are potential conflicts between the business interests of Redis Labs and the interests of the community to be identified and resolved ? Who will own the copyright over the newly submitted code and are there any safeguards against future versions of Redis being released under licenses more restrictive than the current one ?

tuananh 6y ago

redis complexity has been increasing a lot lately (module, stream, multi-thread,...) not that i don't like it but antirez has been hesitated about adding those before.

acje 6y ago

Simon Wardley “system of theft” comes to mind. This is probably a good move. Keep on creating!

da39a3ee 6y ago

Thank you for writing this antirez, I think I'll remember it as a statement of some principles that I like to think I aspire to also: like many people here I guess, I would describe myself as someone who loves writing software, and in my own small way I've also tried to avoid being dragged into team/project management because that is not what I seek out of a lifetime involved with code. And, yes, I do like to think of writing code as a creative activity / form of expression. I also need to study your C code more! Perhaps I'll look at the early redis commits.

bigtones 6y ago

Thanks Antirez, Redis powers my startup and we could not have done it without you ! You and your beautiful release notes essays will be missed.

jrochkind1 6y ago

While a very different circumstance, the pull between "I write code in order to express myself" and being an "artist" vs. "useful" and the drudgery of maintenance reminds me of famous rubyist _why and why he stopped doing stuff in the community. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/why-a-tale-of-a-post-modern-genius/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/why-a-tale-of-a-pos... https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit/ https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit...

slim 6y ago

Recently I published videos in Italian language explaining technological concepts to the general public where are the videos ? I can't find them

slim 6y ago
nevermind : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDG9vOcmgwlslJJpCWjqOg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDG9vOcmgwlslJJpCWjqOg

lame88 6y ago

I think you've been a role model in how to build and maintain a popular software project while keeping the spirit of FOSS and promoting a positive community around it. I look forward to seeing what you get up to next.

the_arun 6y ago

Honestly this change is great for Salvatore. Hope they find another bright idea and inspire the programming community! All the best!

antirez 6y ago

Moved the blog in a more decent server :D Faster now. But DNS propagation will take some time. Yet most of the new requests will go in the new server so also the old one will be faster.

progx 6y ago

Building a thing is fun, maintain not. Especially if it is a tool, a tool for a specific problem and it solved it. But people want more and more functionality. Then you work on things you never wanted to do. You take the exit, i can fully understand it.

rubyfan 6y ago

> In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer. words of wisdom right there

eplanit 6y ago
It's egotistical humblebrag.

root_axis 6y ago

redis is really a joy to work with. truly, thank you.

tpae 6y ago

> In essence, I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer.

orasis 6y ago

“I would rather be remembered as a bad artist than a good programmer.”

netvarun 6y ago

Thank you very much for all your time and effort in starting and shepherding this very important project (and also in finding a great home to continue the legacy). Redis was (and continues to be a very integral) part of my startup's stack. We've also extended the redis protocol for all sorts of custom hacks. I will miss your humility and patience in communicating the roadmap, technicalities and all around community work. A great all-round example for all of us to follow. Thanks so much - and eagerly looking forward to your next set of projects!

dzonga 6y ago

thanks to @antirez, for the elegant data structures in redis. literally, cs concepts transferred to practicality, when I learned redis

avmich 6y ago

It's long past due that we should move to software which isn't maintained - because there's nothing to do. Adding features could be done either by writing a new one - because the requests don't really fit the meaning of old one, the creators saw that and rejected; fixing bugs - yes, fixing bugs may remain, but are there many bugs in, say, TEX code? We don't yet know how to write a completed software well - the one which isn't updated on Github for years yet nobody calls it stale or outdated.

akrain 6y ago
I know at least one software that was complete - hasn'tbeen updated in a long time and I still useit. It's Winamp.
shurane 6y ago
I think video games fit in the area of 'completed software'. Most video games today rarely see updates a few years after they're released. And older video games were on read only mediums, so you would hope whatever you release is very stable and feature complete.

niftylettuce 6y ago

Absolutely love your work @antirez. Also appreciate your blog. Using Redis to handle greylisting on a custom Node.js backed email forwarding service: https://github.com/forwardemail/free-email-forwarding/blob/08a6278f866a441e4906af249650d86b54fb9ed6/index.js#L588-L592 https://github.com/forwardemail/free-email-forwarding/blob/0... Also using it for job scheduling (with clustering support on top of Bull): https://github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net/blob/master/bull.js https://github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net/blob/master... So many things you can do with Redis :tada:

_wldu 6y ago

I first met antirez during the Engine Yard Hamming Distance contest. Does anyone else remember that? DJB, and his team, won it. It was a lot of fun to participate. http://oldblog.antirez.com/post/some-math-about-the-engineyard-contest.html http://oldblog.antirez.com/post/some-math-about-the-engineya... I wish companies would have contests such as this more often. I think it would be a great way to find and hire really good people.

franciscop 6y ago

Redis is one of the best pieces of software of the last 10 years, thank you so much for creating it and maintaining it! It has been incredibly useful for me and thousands (millions?) of developers.

pjscott 6y ago

When some software I was responsible for started melting down under a load 10x bigger than it could handle, I was able to fix it by doing an emergency rewrite of the data storage part using Redis with Lua scripting. This was back when that feature was still experimental, so I was using unstable tarballs in production -- and yet everything worked perfectly! The emergency was fixed in a single long day. It was a miracle. Thanks for all the great things you've done with Redis! "Beautiful" describes it well.

reggieband 6y ago

There are only a few pieces of infrastructure that I haven't found myself cursing at, redis and haproxy are among them. They both are the closest to set-it-and-forget-it I have worked with. No doubt the leadership of Antirez played some part in that. I hope the project can continue to reach the bar he set.

grezql 6y ago

Thanks for all! Good luck in future

luord 6y ago

As someone who loves programming and dreads most of project management (and being anywhere close to a limelight nowadays), I understand. Redis is an awesome piece of software and who knows, maybe this'll free antirez to create another awesome tool.

jjoe 6y ago

I've made a little bit of money thanks to Redis [0]. All I did was build integration for Redis on cPanel. So that speaks to the great quality brand of Redis. Thank you and Godspeed! [0] https://www.unixy.net/redis https://www.unixy.net/redis

blfr 6y ago

My co-founder and I had successfully launched two of the major web 2.0 services of the Italian web. What are these services?

angott 6y ago
One of them was LLOOGG: https://github.com/antirez/lloogg https://github.com/antirez/lloogg, which used to be at lloogg.com but it seems like the domain was not renewed. I remember using it on my personal website long before I had even heard of Redis, it was a nice analytics tool for small sites with little traffic.
antirez 6y ago
Segnalo and Oknotizie. Segnalo was similar to delicious, Oknotizie similar to Reddit/Digg. Later in order to create the first service, LLOOGG, I had to write Redis.

marktangotango 6y ago

> I don’t like much what the underground programming world became in recent years, I find this to be a provocative statement. Does anyone know what he means?

abraae 6y ago

> In eleven years I hope I was able to provide a point of view that certain persons understood, about an alternative way to write software. I hope that such point of view will be taken into consideration in the evolution of Redis. To me this epitomises what Bill Gates meant when he said "Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.". I just wish I had something to show for my last decade that had as much impact as Redis!

Gummaluri 6y ago

Coincidentally was reading an old discussion, few days ago, of Salvatore joining Redis labs fulltime from Pivotal labs. The discussion can be found here [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9890824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9890824

davidw 6y ago

It's been pretty cool to see that grow. I recall chatting with antirez about it on IRC ages ago when he was still working on the initial idea.

chrisweekly 6y ago

Congrats and thank you, Salvatore (@antirez), for producing such a beautiful, powerful, useful and important piece of software... and for articulating and demonstrating such passionate commitment to a personal vision that is so very rare, valuable, and inspiring... and for your responsible stewardship of its maintainance even when it came at the cost of your personal preferences. You're a class act, and I have no doubt you'll be successful with whatever comes next. Hats off for doing it right! Bravo!

VeejayRampay 6y ago

grazie mille Salvatore

bbulkow 6y ago

My thought here. I'm not exactly a disinterested party because I built my own key value store company (possibly the wrong way but that's a different story). I have a huge respect for Redis, and Antirez, but I have to say my respect doesn't include RedisLabs. They're the ones who started a commercial endevour to capitalize on Redis initially without Antirez, and then later offered him a position. They're the ones that Kyle@Jepsen says is making claims about ACID, not Antirez. I always heard that Clustering was a feature Antirez was very reluctant about. I hope Redis is, fundamentally, taken away from RedisLabs. Antirez, you say you want to express through code and open source, and I can't square that with your association with RedisLabs. You've been taking their money for quite a few years now to allow them to put up a billboard saying "the home of redis". I'm going to stop right there. I've cut my own path through the wild jungle that's Open Source, and it's not yours, and I respect the years you put in to make the product with your vision. I'm sure there are some other first coders of foundational databases on this list, but it's a small club. As an employee of RedisLabs, I don't think you are free to say what you'd like to say, I hope you follow whatever path does allow you to freely express in the future. Good luck always.

cjhanks 6y ago

What a beautiful conclusion for him on such a beautiful project. This man clearly loves the art of programming... so much, that he would give up power, just to pursue it again. Thanks for the wonderful blog posts (over the years) and products.

darepublic 6y ago

Redis is a pleasure to work with

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blobster 6y ago

Thank you for your amazing work. Redis has been by far the most dependable component of my tech stack and it's opened up a whole new way of thinking about data. Best of luck in your future endeavors!

grupthink 6y ago

Thank you, @antirez! I have a live stock market site that heavily relies on redis for streaming data, tracking leaderboards, and message passing. It would have been difficult without Redis. You really affected my life. Big hug to you, Salvatore! I hope you find your next inspiration, and bless us with your next masterpiece. :)

bsubramaniam91 6y ago

We love redis. Thanks for the creating and contributing so long. Good luck @antirez.

pietroppeter 6y ago

a very nice interview (in Italian) published last May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgT6rXytKds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgT6rXytKds Towards the end he anticipates what is now public.