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Why We Shut Down Charm on the Eve of Public Launch, at $48k/Year and Growing
- protonfish 14y agoI am not sure if I buy the "it's nobody's fault" explanation. From what I gather, what they built simply did not work, even though it was clearly feasible. They had a failure of engineering and could not afford to rebuild the entire app. I know nothing about the specifics of the architecture, but I do know first-hand that if using Rails as the basis of an efficient and high-capacity SaaS backend, it is the wrong decision.
- ahoyhere 14y agoI was going to write a sarcastic reply saying "Whoops! Better tell all [major companies using Rails] that they made the wrong decision" but honestly, is it worth my breath? Haha.
- jwaldrip 14y agoFunny, but I disagree. Rails scales, if you know how... We serve millions of customers each month and have implemented a reliable and stable architecture.
- ahoyhere 14y agoI think you're replying to protonfish, not me.
- protonfish 14y agoAnything scales if you know how, but why choose to use a buggy, bloated mess if you don't have to?
- seancron 14y agoWhat would you recommend?
- protonfish 14y agoGreat question. In my career so far I have deployed Web apps in ASP Classic, PHP, ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails. It appears that RoR can only handle a small fraction of activity compared to the other technologies before maxing out system resources. There are some lighter weight Ruby frameworks out there (Rack, Sinatra) that are probably more appropriate for large-scale back ends. Still, I have not worked with any Web technology that is performant enough to confidently endorse.
- petercooper 14y agoIndeed! The only thing that doesn't scale in my experience is people's sense of humor on Hacker News.
- awj 14y ago> but I do know first-hand that if using Rails as the basis of an efficient and high-capacity SaaS backend, it is the wrong decision. Ok, I'll tell 37signals that it's time to shut down Basecamp. You get on the phone with Shopify and break the bad news.
- sdepablos 14y agoEven they - 37signals - have agreed http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1509-mr-moore-gets-to-punt-on-sharding http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1509-mr-moore-gets-to-punt-on... they solve their scaling problems throwing bigger and faster machines to them. I think the problem here is that they choose a technology that is difficult - but not impossible - to scale, and they didn't have either the in-house know-how to solve their problems neither the money to hire someone with the knowledge to do it. I think RoR could have been a good decision a few years ago, when the web framework landscape what atrocious, but nowadays there're a lot of good options based on other programming languages that have already proved could be scaled without finding untraceable bugs. Heck, just a few days ago an acquaintance showed me a webapp running over a perl - Amazon, IMDB, Slashdot... use perl heavily - async framework 20% faster than node.js.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sleighboy 14y agoPure flame-bait for HN readers, sysadmins, developers, founders. Not worth reading.
- ahoyhere 14y agoHi, y'all. Amy here. If you've got a real question, I'd be glad to answer it. EDIT: As of 4pm eastern I'm off to meet my interior designer and then attend a joinery demo at a wood shop so it may be a bit but I will absolutely read & respond to your questions later or tomorrow. My goal is to share. And maybe mock people a little, if they can't think up an original insult when they attack me.
- drewmck 14y agoYou mentioned the logistical, technical and financial problems involved. Was part of the problem that you simply lost interest in the project?
- ahoyhere 14y agoGood question. Not at all. We were exhausted, but we love the project. I still hope that if we come across the right hire(s), we'll revive it. But I'm not going to spend a year of my life desperately hustling to hire (which still may not work) instead of working on the profitable product we already have.
- bdavisx 14y agoNo questions, but hopefully the naysayers and trolls won't bother you this time around. I've certainly got to the point where I DGAF about other peoples opinions - at least people on the internet. Heck, I prefer Java for developing applications, but around here a large number of people would consider me an idiot for just thinking about Java, let alone actually using it.
- ahoyhere 14y agoThanks for the sentiment. They may show up, but they never bother me!
- bostonOU 14y agoHave you guys considered open-sourcing the code and/or providing some detailed info on the architecture you've built?
- gyardley 14y agoThe "don't do it if it's going to make you miserable" stance is a nice switch from the usual "startups are suffering so go read some Marcus Aurelius" attitude we get around here.
- ahoyhere 14y agoAs somebody who's read Marcus Aurelius, I feel like if you read it, it ought to make you realize how pointless pointless suffering is.
- contingencies 14y agoIt would be a terrible shame if you tanked a viable business because of availability concerns, because these sorts of problems are well solved. Highly available systems are designed in such a way that any individual component may fail without bringing the overall system down. (ie. "Kernel issues? Detect, remotely reboot server." Yes! There's free code for that. No. Many run of the mill sysadmins probably aren't familiar with it.)
- ahoyhere 14y agoAsked with all sincerity… did you read my article? "A kernel issue" was not "the problem." There was no "the problem". There were a slew of problems of which that was merely the icing on the nasty problem cake. And considering how many times I lauded our sys admin as an expert and top talent, not sure why you would think he was "run of the mill." Nope, we hired somebody who had one of the best possible track records in the RoR world. We had a redundant architecture from day 1. My demand was that we have a system ready to work at scale so we wouldn't be growing and 8 or 9 months in, have to migrate servers, complete with customers. Not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, that caution didn't help (and maybe it hurt).
- aymeric 14y agoWhy not sell the web app? Surely some developer would be happy to keep it running and live off it.