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> Building polling infrastructure is substantially more complex That really depends on the setup you're using. There are plenty of server platforms out there w

> Building polling infrastructure is substantially more complex That really depends on the setup you're using. There are plenty of server platforms out there where setting up a cron is no more complicated than making a GET route handler.

sergiomattei 5y ago
I'm looking at it from the perspective of a web dev. If you're already building a web application, it is almost always more work to do the polling setup. In Python, it's either a cron script or Celery beat. In PHP, usually a cron script. That all means more processes running outside of your web framework, more stuff to deal with, more complexity. Now you have to manage e.g. running a celery process, managing crontabs wherever you deploy... Even in languages like Elixir where long-running scheduled processes are cheap and native, you still have to write a GenServer in comparison to just using your web framework. I'm fine with the approach in the article. I actually like that they're giving the option for multiple ways of getting those events. Just please, please don't make /events the only option...
- justsomeuser 5y ago
  I actually have the opposite opinion. I'm an experienced web developer. Setting up polling is easier for me than setting up an HTTP endpoint. I typically use a language with an event loop (async/await), so there is always something like `setInterval(poll, 500)`. All that code needs is a connection to the internet. If the server is down for 24 hours I can start it up and it'll read the missed events. I can set up 10 dev environments with just an API key difference in the config. I can batch apply events in a single database transaction, ensuring consistency. But with a webhook, I need to ensure that my server can accept incoming connections, the external API knows that location. Each dev env needs to replicate this public HTTP server set up. I need to monitor the uptime of the server closely as missing events or erroring on a subset of events could leave my database in an inconsistent state.
masklinn 5y ago
> There are plenty of server platforms out there where setting up a cron is no more complicated than making a GET route handler. Or way simpler if you're not building a web application in the first place.

sergiomattei 5y ago

I'm looking at it from the perspective of a web dev. If you're already building a web application, it is almost always more work to do the polling setup. In Python, it's either a cron script or Celery beat. In PHP, usually a cron script. That all means more processes running outside of your web framework, more stuff to deal with, more complexity. Now you have to manage e.g. running a celery process, managing crontabs wherever you deploy... Even in languages like Elixir where long-running scheduled processes are cheap and native, you still have to write a GenServer in comparison to just using your web framework. I'm fine with the approach in the article. I actually like that they're giving the option for multiple ways of getting those events. Just please, please don't make /events the only option...

justsomeuser 5y ago
I actually have the opposite opinion. I'm an experienced web developer. Setting up polling is easier for me than setting up an HTTP endpoint. I typically use a language with an event loop (async/await), so there is always something like `setInterval(poll, 500)`. All that code needs is a connection to the internet. If the server is down for 24 hours I can start it up and it'll read the missed events. I can set up 10 dev environments with just an API key difference in the config. I can batch apply events in a single database transaction, ensuring consistency. But with a webhook, I need to ensure that my server can accept incoming connections, the external API knows that location. Each dev env needs to replicate this public HTTP server set up. I need to monitor the uptime of the server closely as missing events or erroring on a subset of events could leave my database in an inconsistent state.

masklinn 5y ago

> There are plenty of server platforms out there where setting up a cron is no more complicated than making a GET route handler. Or way simpler if you're not building a web application in the first place.