4 ms·

I lol-ed at this. A few years ago, someone said it runs as a single process on 1 core and use no database, everything is written to filesystem.

by xuki 4y ago

andai 4y ago
Two years ago I emailed HN to ask why favoriting posts is rate limited. Got the reply, "HN's main software runs on a single core." They also said they are working on an overhaul of Arc and HN, which will massively improve performance.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  They gave you false info https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34171328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34171328
  - tjoff 4y ago
    Nothing in that thread or linked threads provides anything that contradicts that statement that I could find. Please be more descriptive so that people actually get your point.
  - andai 4y ago
    NGINX does the heavy lifting, and can utilize many cores.
neysofu 4y ago
Is that supposed to be a good thing?
- xuki 4y ago
  In my opinion, yes. It's simple to run, simple to back up, simple to migrate to a new server, upgrade path is straightforward (find the fastest single core CPU).
- makapuf 4y ago
  If it provides the correct features and runs correctly, simpler is better. To me, simpler to run, understand, backup, deploy, recover goes in the right direction.
- sph 4y ago
  Would it make your experience as a user better if the data was stored in a schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file? Would you browse it more often? If you had to pay for it, would you pay more money? Because at the end of the day, none of those decisions matter, and sometimes the crappy, inelegant solution is cheaper and more understandable to the ones running it for almost two decades.
  - neysofu 4y ago
    Oh, I'm not debating the impact such a decision has on users, but rather on development experience and ops. > schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file I was actually going to suggest SQLite.
mrighele 4y ago
HN started as a project to experiment [1] with the Arc Language [2], so it doesn't surprise me that it used static files as a storage. I wondering what is the stack these days though. [1] http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html [2] http://arclanguage.org http://arclanguage.org
moffkalast 4y ago
That is what I'd expect it to still be tbh, if the responsiveness is anything to go by.

I lol-ed at this. A few years ago, someone said it runs as a single process on 1 core and use no database, everything is written to filesystem.

by xuki 4y ago

I lol-ed at this. A few years ago, someone said it runs as a single process on 1 core and use no database, everything is written to filesystem.

andai 4y ago

Two years ago I emailed HN to ask why favoriting posts is rate limited. Got the reply, "HN's main software runs on a single core." They also said they are working on an overhaul of Arc and HN, which will massively improve performance.

hackernewds 4y ago
They gave you false info https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34171328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34171328
- tjoff 4y ago
  Nothing in that thread or linked threads provides anything that contradicts that statement that I could find. Please be more descriptive so that people actually get your point.
- andai 4y ago
  NGINX does the heavy lifting, and can utilize many cores.

neysofu 4y ago

Is that supposed to be a good thing?

xuki 4y ago
In my opinion, yes. It's simple to run, simple to back up, simple to migrate to a new server, upgrade path is straightforward (find the fastest single core CPU).
makapuf 4y ago
If it provides the correct features and runs correctly, simpler is better. To me, simpler to run, understand, backup, deploy, recover goes in the right direction.
sph 4y ago
Would it make your experience as a user better if the data was stored in a schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file? Would you browse it more often? If you had to pay for it, would you pay more money? Because at the end of the day, none of those decisions matter, and sometimes the crappy, inelegant solution is cheaper and more understandable to the ones running it for almost two decades.
- neysofu 4y ago
  Oh, I'm not debating the impact such a decision has on users, but rather on development experience and ops. > schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file I was actually going to suggest SQLite.

mrighele 4y ago

HN started as a project to experiment [1] with the Arc Language [2], so it doesn't surprise me that it used static files as a storage. I wondering what is the stack these days though. [1] http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html [2] http://arclanguage.org http://arclanguage.org

moffkalast 4y ago

That is what I'd expect it to still be tbh, if the responsiveness is anything to go by.