4 ms·

Do you have inside info on this? I've seen several people from Facebook comment that they are in fact using PHP. The fact that they're compiling to C++ is a co

Do you have inside info on this? I've seen several people from Facebook comment that they are in fact using PHP. The fact that they're compiling to C++ is a consequence of the slowness of the programming language implementations of those languages that are used traditionally for web development. AFAIK Ruby was and still is the slowest of the bunch.

tikhonj 14y ago
A couple people I know well spent the summer there (I actually visited one at the old headquarters; it was pretty cool). One now works there full time (the other hasn't graduated yet). I also talked to some fulltime engineers who were not using PHP. Now, it's reasonable that I did not get the full picture, but the people I did talk did not use PHP themselves and claimed that new projects didn't either. Perhaps this varies per team. My impression was that existing code bases using PHP were still under active development (that is, getting new features) but new projects and new developers did not use PHP.
- notinfinland 14y ago
  Interesting. What were they using, C++? I've heard about D...
  - tikhonj 14y ago
    The particular people I talked to were using C++. But I think there is even a team using Haskell for some internal tools :).
charliesome 14y ago
MRI Ruby is actually significantly faster than CPython these days.
- irahul 14y ago
  Citation needed. Both CPython and MRI are slow - if you need computational speed, use something else. But when your are comparing them to each other, CPython is faster. I don't know where you are getting that significantly faster bit from. Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. So here goes: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python3&lang2=yarv http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...
  - chrisrhoden 14y ago
    I suspect that parent was referring to the python 2.x branch, which has been catching up with ruby 1.9, but on most benchmarks started at ~ 3x slower and are now ~ 2x slower. Since benchmarks are completely worthless, let's just stop this pissing match right now.
    - irahul 14y ago
      > I suspect that parent was referring to the python 2.x branch, which has been catching up with ruby 1.9, but on most benchmarks started at ~ 3x slower and are now ~ 2x slower. Citation needed again. Ruby 1.9 is slower than Python 3, and Python 3 is slower or as fast as Python 2 on Python official benchmarks. http://docs.python.org/release/3.0.1/whatsnew/3.0.html#performance http://docs.python.org/release/3.0.1/whatsnew/3.0.html#perfo... > Since benchmarks are completely worthless, let's just stop this pissing match right now. Benchmarks are far from worthless. And pissing match? Asking for citations amounts to pissing match? The parent claimed something that isn't true(ruby 1.9 significantly faster than CPython - that has never been the case). And you are adding python 2.x was slower than 1.9, when 2.x is generally faster than 3. I love ruby as much as the next guy. But when it comes to execution speed, ruby has always been the slowest among ruby, python, and perl.
      - chrisrhoden 14y ago
        Fib(36) Python 2.7.2 def fib(n): if n == 0 or n == 1: return n else: return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) for i in range(36): print "n=%d => %d" % (i, fib(i))' python -c 20.69s user 0.06s system 99% cpu 20.807 total Ruby 1.9.3 def fib(n) if n == 0 || n == 1 n else fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) end end 36.times do |i| puts "n=#{i} => #{fib(i)}" end ruby 11.44s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 11.507 total I guess since benchmarks are not completely worthless, we should conclude that ubuntu doesn't keep up on ruby and uses 2-3 year old versions. I wasn't accusing you of starting the pissing match.

tikhonj 14y ago

A couple people I know well spent the summer there (I actually visited one at the old headquarters; it was pretty cool). One now works there full time (the other hasn't graduated yet). I also talked to some fulltime engineers who were not using PHP. Now, it's reasonable that I did not get the full picture, but the people I did talk did not use PHP themselves and claimed that new projects didn't either. Perhaps this varies per team. My impression was that existing code bases using PHP were still under active development (that is, getting new features) but new projects and new developers did not use PHP.

notinfinland 14y ago
Interesting. What were they using, C++? I've heard about D...
- tikhonj 14y ago
  The particular people I talked to were using C++. But I think there is even a team using Haskell for some internal tools :).

charliesome 14y ago

MRI Ruby is actually significantly faster than CPython these days.

irahul 14y ago
Citation needed. Both CPython and MRI are slow - if you need computational speed, use something else. But when your are comparing them to each other, CPython is faster. I don't know where you are getting that significantly faster bit from. Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. So here goes: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python3&lang2=yarv http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...
- chrisrhoden 14y ago
  I suspect that parent was referring to the python 2.x branch, which has been catching up with ruby 1.9, but on most benchmarks started at ~ 3x slower and are now ~ 2x slower. Since benchmarks are completely worthless, let's just stop this pissing match right now.
  - irahul 14y ago
    > I suspect that parent was referring to the python 2.x branch, which has been catching up with ruby 1.9, but on most benchmarks started at ~ 3x slower and are now ~ 2x slower. Citation needed again. Ruby 1.9 is slower than Python 3, and Python 3 is slower or as fast as Python 2 on Python official benchmarks. http://docs.python.org/release/3.0.1/whatsnew/3.0.html#performance http://docs.python.org/release/3.0.1/whatsnew/3.0.html#perfo... > Since benchmarks are completely worthless, let's just stop this pissing match right now. Benchmarks are far from worthless. And pissing match? Asking for citations amounts to pissing match? The parent claimed something that isn't true(ruby 1.9 significantly faster than CPython - that has never been the case). And you are adding python 2.x was slower than 1.9, when 2.x is generally faster than 3. I love ruby as much as the next guy. But when it comes to execution speed, ruby has always been the slowest among ruby, python, and perl.
    - chrisrhoden 14y ago
      Fib(36) Python 2.7.2 def fib(n): if n == 0 or n == 1: return n else: return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) for i in range(36): print "n=%d => %d" % (i, fib(i))' python -c 20.69s user 0.06s system 99% cpu 20.807 total Ruby 1.9.3 def fib(n) if n == 0 || n == 1 n else fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) end end 36.times do |i| puts "n=#{i} => #{fib(i)}" end ruby 11.44s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 11.507 total I guess since benchmarks are not completely worthless, we should conclude that ubuntu doesn't keep up on ruby and uses 2-3 year old versions. I wasn't accusing you of starting the pissing match.