4 ms·

Fun seeing HN restart to switch to the Christmas theme, in three steps: https://share.cleanshot.com/vJZv6k03 https://share.cleanshot.com/vJZv6k03 (restarting t

by tekacs 10mo ago

Fun seeing HN restart to switch to the Christmas theme, in three steps: https://share.cleanshot.com/vJZv6k03 https://share.cleanshot.com/vJZv6k03 (restarting the server) https://share.cleanshot.com/qFyM347P https://share.cleanshot.com/qFyM347P (online but temporarily readonly) https://share.cleanshot.com/kW8kY7mp https://share.cleanshot.com/kW8kY7mp (back online!)

jagged-chisel 10mo ago
Restart?! ouch
- basilikum 10mo ago
  HN is a pretty simple, efficient monolithic web application. Some updates might need a restart. It's OK for some web requests to fail during that time. HN isn't life critical with sixtuple nine uptime requirements.
  - sallveburrpi 10mo ago
    Tbh like 99% of web apps aren’t critical - most of them are for buying something or providing infrastructure to make it easier to buy something anyway. It’s fine if your online shop is down for a few minutes (of course the business won’t see it like that but it’s true)
    - basilikum 10mo ago
      A sales site being down might lose you a sale. But the simplicity might save you so muh more than that loses you. And often the complexion of high availability infrastructure results in more downtime than it prevents. For stuff like HN, I like the peek behind the scenes it provides. It's all just software written by some humans and way too often people take themselves and their shitty software way too serious.
    - brightbeige 10mo ago
      B&H is doing fine financially and brings their webstore down for each and every Sabbath, even if that happens to be a Black Friday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263
  - lomase 10mo ago
    Steam, +130 million users, biggest gamming store, multi billion dolar company, is offline every week for a few minutes. 99.999999 is so overated.
  - uyzstvqs 10mo ago
    It could probably be done with a simple if statement, but I'm guessing that dang enjoys the tradition of doing it manually every year.
- dang 10mo ago
  I'd rather restart once (ok, twice) a year than keep that code around in production. It only affects traffic for about 10 seconds.
- kelnos 10mo ago
  I feel like this obsession with zero downtime has gotten a bit silly. Sure, for some things it's damn near required (though I imagine that's fewer things than most people think), but it 100% does not matter even a little bit if HN is unavailable for 10 seconds or so.
  - jagged-chisel 10mo ago
    Everyone went right for “downtime” - no, that’s not an issue. I would have expected a configuration change, which wouldn’t require a restart but might indeed result in downtime. Or even a configuration change that some control system notices and does restart the service. It’s the manual, hands-on connotation (maybe only in my mind) of telling someone a restart is involved. Automate this stuff - don’t want the code in the server all year? Fine, have a process rebuild and relaunch on a schedule that makes sense. Might have downtime, but definitely have less hands-on.
dang 10mo ago
You must have grabbed that first one awfully quickly!
- throwup238 10mo ago
  You’d have more luck asking for world peace.
brcmthrowaway 10mo ago
What container is this running in?
- dang 10mo ago
  FreeBSD
  - president_zippy 10mo ago
    Color me confused, but what do containers add to FreeBSD beyond jails? Jails have their own IP addresses and root filesystem, plus they use the host OS's version of libc and OpenSSL/LibreSSL and all the other core utils. Is it the convenience utilities for building and running container images?
    - dang 10mo ago
      I was joking. There is no container. (We don't use jails either.)
      - president_zippy 10mo ago
        But alas, FreeBSD does support OCI container images! It supports Podman and has an OCI-compliant runtime: https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd... However, I still can't pinpoint what the value proposition is compared to using jails. Is there anybody around here able and willing to shed some light? I know I didn't use Cunningham's Law to start the conversation like a clever netizen but maybe, just this once, a good faith response to a good faith question is possible.
  - ashton314 10mo ago
    The power to serve
andersa 10mo ago
So what's the christmas theme? Unless I'm blind, it looks the same as always, except the header color seems to have changed... slightly?
- ojbyrne 10mo ago
  Perhaps you've looked at the site so much that you're blind to the numbers at the start of each item.
  - andersa 10mo ago
    Oh, indeed
  - BubbleRings 10mo ago
    No numbers in Chrome on iPhone, fyi.
    - ojbyrne 10mo ago
      I can’t tell if you’re joking, because I’m looking at the site on chrome on iPhone and there’s numbers.
- jaggederest 10mo ago
  The numbers next to the submissions are red/green
- Aspie96 10mo ago
  Japan changed its flag for Christmas…
The_President 10mo ago
Dear Santa, for Christmas can we get a prefers-color-scheme: dark mode for HN, thank you and Merry Christmas

by tekacs 10mo ago

jagged-chisel 10mo ago

Restart?! ouch

basilikum 10mo ago
HN is a pretty simple, efficient monolithic web application. Some updates might need a restart. It's OK for some web requests to fail during that time. HN isn't life critical with sixtuple nine uptime requirements.
- sallveburrpi 10mo ago
  Tbh like 99% of web apps aren’t critical - most of them are for buying something or providing infrastructure to make it easier to buy something anyway. It’s fine if your online shop is down for a few minutes (of course the business won’t see it like that but it’s true)
  - basilikum 10mo ago
    A sales site being down might lose you a sale. But the simplicity might save you so muh more than that loses you. And often the complexion of high availability infrastructure results in more downtime than it prevents. For stuff like HN, I like the peek behind the scenes it provides. It's all just software written by some humans and way too often people take themselves and their shitty software way too serious.
  - brightbeige 10mo ago
    B&H is doing fine financially and brings their webstore down for each and every Sabbath, even if that happens to be a Black Friday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263
- lomase 10mo ago
  Steam, +130 million users, biggest gamming store, multi billion dolar company, is offline every week for a few minutes. 99.999999 is so overated.
- uyzstvqs 10mo ago
  It could probably be done with a simple if statement, but I'm guessing that dang enjoys the tradition of doing it manually every year.
dang 10mo ago
I'd rather restart once (ok, twice) a year than keep that code around in production. It only affects traffic for about 10 seconds.
kelnos 10mo ago
I feel like this obsession with zero downtime has gotten a bit silly. Sure, for some things it's damn near required (though I imagine that's fewer things than most people think), but it 100% does not matter even a little bit if HN is unavailable for 10 seconds or so.
- jagged-chisel 10mo ago
  Everyone went right for “downtime” - no, that’s not an issue. I would have expected a configuration change, which wouldn’t require a restart but might indeed result in downtime. Or even a configuration change that some control system notices and does restart the service. It’s the manual, hands-on connotation (maybe only in my mind) of telling someone a restart is involved. Automate this stuff - don’t want the code in the server all year? Fine, have a process rebuild and relaunch on a schedule that makes sense. Might have downtime, but definitely have less hands-on.

dang 10mo ago

You must have grabbed that first one awfully quickly!

throwup238 10mo ago
You’d have more luck asking for world peace.

brcmthrowaway 10mo ago

What container is this running in?

dang 10mo ago
FreeBSD
- president_zippy 10mo ago
  Color me confused, but what do containers add to FreeBSD beyond jails? Jails have their own IP addresses and root filesystem, plus they use the host OS's version of libc and OpenSSL/LibreSSL and all the other core utils. Is it the convenience utilities for building and running container images?
  - dang 10mo ago
    I was joking. There is no container. (We don't use jails either.)
    - president_zippy 10mo ago
      But alas, FreeBSD does support OCI container images! It supports Podman and has an OCI-compliant runtime: https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd... However, I still can't pinpoint what the value proposition is compared to using jails. Is there anybody around here able and willing to shed some light? I know I didn't use Cunningham's Law to start the conversation like a clever netizen but maybe, just this once, a good faith response to a good faith question is possible.
- ashton314 10mo ago
  The power to serve

andersa 10mo ago

So what's the christmas theme? Unless I'm blind, it looks the same as always, except the header color seems to have changed... slightly?

ojbyrne 10mo ago
Perhaps you've looked at the site so much that you're blind to the numbers at the start of each item.
- andersa 10mo ago
  Oh, indeed
- BubbleRings 10mo ago
  No numbers in Chrome on iPhone, fyi.
  - ojbyrne 10mo ago
    I can’t tell if you’re joking, because I’m looking at the site on chrome on iPhone and there’s numbers.
jaggederest 10mo ago
The numbers next to the submissions are red/green
Aspie96 10mo ago
Japan changed its flag for Christmas…

The_President 10mo ago

Dear Santa, for Christmas can we get a prefers-color-scheme: dark mode for HN, thank you and Merry Christmas