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Ah, but they are using Java [0] - and obviously they need a solution that works with the stack they currently have - proposing Erland at this time is asinine.

by vaduz 6y ago

Ah, but they are using Java [0] - and obviously they need a solution that works with the stack they currently have - proposing Erland at this time is asinine. Erlang would have been solution if they have predicted the brain-dead actions of Whatsapp/Facebook, and if they had ample time to prepare - and it would still have some hard limits on a number of messages it can handle. [0] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

rvz 6y ago
> Ah, but they are using Java Exactly my point. It’s still down. Their Java servers doesn’t seem to handle this scale well and aren’t reliable for this. The fact that they have to “Add more servers” to handle this traffic tells you exactly why Erlang / Elixir or BEAM VM languages are better suited for this (And also can save them money instead of provisioning more servers on AWS). > obviously they need a solution that works with the stack they currently have It was down before even when they had less users. One user made this suggestion 3 years ago, and Signal looked at this. Plenty of time to switch. > proposing Erland at this time is asinine. You mean 3 years ago with their $60M in funding? Plenty of time and money to hire an Erlang / Elixir consultant.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  You realize erlang isn't a silver bullet right?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- darksaints 6y ago
  > The fact that they have to “Add more servers” to handle this traffic tells you exactly why Erlang / Elixir or BEAM VM languages are better suited for this (And also can save them money instead of provisioning more servers on AWS). You do realize that the major reason BeamVM is popular for this use case is because it makes it easy to add more servers, right? Erlang doesn't magically make it so you never have to add more servers. Actually, it's the opposite. Erlang is pretty computationally inefficient compared to most statically typed languages like Java. If there is any VM out there preventing your from needing more servers, it's the JVM. Generally speaking you can do more work with fewer resources with the JVM than you can with the BeamVM...it's just that the BeamVM makes it easier to add more resources.
suyash 6y ago
Java is much capable of handling any sort of challenges, it's not so much about programming language from the looks of it, it's about architecting their backend and networking issues.

by vaduz 6y ago

rvz 6y ago

> Ah, but they are using Java Exactly my point. It’s still down. Their Java servers doesn’t seem to handle this scale well and aren’t reliable for this. The fact that they have to “Add more servers” to handle this traffic tells you exactly why Erlang / Elixir or BEAM VM languages are better suited for this (And also can save them money instead of provisioning more servers on AWS). > obviously they need a solution that works with the stack they currently have It was down before even when they had less users. One user made this suggestion 3 years ago, and Signal looked at this. Plenty of time to switch. > proposing Erland at this time is asinine. You mean 3 years ago with their $60M in funding? Plenty of time and money to hire an Erlang / Elixir consultant.

aaomidi 6y ago
You realize erlang isn't a silver bullet right?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
darksaints 6y ago
> The fact that they have to “Add more servers” to handle this traffic tells you exactly why Erlang / Elixir or BEAM VM languages are better suited for this (And also can save them money instead of provisioning more servers on AWS). You do realize that the major reason BeamVM is popular for this use case is because it makes it easy to add more servers, right? Erlang doesn't magically make it so you never have to add more servers. Actually, it's the opposite. Erlang is pretty computationally inefficient compared to most statically typed languages like Java. If there is any VM out there preventing your from needing more servers, it's the JVM. Generally speaking you can do more work with fewer resources with the JVM than you can with the BeamVM...it's just that the BeamVM makes it easier to add more resources.

suyash 6y ago

Java is much capable of handling any sort of challenges, it's not so much about programming language from the looks of it, it's about architecting their backend and networking issues.