Comments on: Top Rails http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml You tell that other boy, not to touch the woodwork... Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:34:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7-hemorrhage hourly 1 By: David Kellogg http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-494075 David Kellogg Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:02:56 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-494075 Clint, Ed, Maybe we should make a rule that anyone who doubts the Alexa numbers has to cough up his Hitwise login and password to prove the blogger wrong. It's only fair. No Comscore numbers, please. Clint, Ed,
Maybe we should make a rule that anyone who doubts the Alexa numbers has to cough up his Hitwise login and password to prove the blogger wrong. It’s only fair. No Comscore numbers, please.

]]> By: tychay http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-493665 tychay Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:38:40 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-493665 You've seen far worse solutions for sessions used back in 2002, before memcache existed. If you choose a framework that is based on an active record hammer, then your problems seem like nails. So yes, Rails is to blame for twitter’s downtime today since it was the prefab house they started with and the usage patterns were evident from day one. I don't code websites in assembly; I don't make video games in php-gtk. You’ve seen far worse solutions for sessions used back in 2002, before memcache existed.

If you choose a framework that is based on an active record hammer, then your problems seem like nails. So yes, Rails is to blame for twitter’s downtime today since it was the prefab house they started with and the usage patterns were evident from day one.

I don’t code websites in assembly; I don’t make video games in php-gtk.

]]> By: Jeremy Johnstone http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-493598 Jeremy Johnstone Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:55:00 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-493598 While I haven't seen the internal structure of Twitter's architecture, I tend to think Russel Beattie's blog post probably has some truth to it: http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/let-the-microblogs-bloom Sure, it's fun to blame Rails and it probably accounts for a large portion of their problems (if not directly, indirectly for sure), but I am guessing that isn't the only big problem. One other tiny beef, while sure, DB session storage would never be my first choice by any stretch of the imagination, I have seen far worse solutions used. I'd much rather an inexperienced dev use that (especially since it should be a ten second switch to go with something better if the DB implementation was done right) than go with some hacked up solution which makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. While I haven’t seen the internal structure of Twitter’s architecture, I tend to think Russel Beattie’s blog post probably has some truth to it:

http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/let-the-microblogs-bloom

Sure, it’s fun to blame Rails and it probably accounts for a large portion of their problems (if not directly, indirectly for sure), but I am guessing that isn’t the only big problem.

One other tiny beef, while sure, DB session storage would never be my first choice by any stretch of the imagination, I have seen far worse solutions used. I’d much rather an inexperienced dev use that (especially since it should be a ten second switch to go with something better if the DB implementation was done right) than go with some hacked up solution which makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

]]> By: tychay http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-493000 tychay Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:06:33 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-493000 I renormalized the Alexa traffic based on Tagged’s internal numbers—Tagged is a write-heavy, ajax-driven site as well as all social networks. As for Twitter’s traffic being a majority non-web. In the comments I noted the differences between content-driven vs. user-driven sites. How much? 10x? That’d put Twitter within parity of Yellow Pages. I actually think it’s more like an addition 1x (2x total) and reading between the lines of this article makes me think that. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/end-of-speculation-the-real-twitter-usage-numbers/ I'll blog again in the future about why Twitter’s problems <strong>are</strong> related to Rails. :-) I renormalized the Alexa traffic based on Tagged’s internal numbers—Tagged is a write-heavy, ajax-driven site as well as all social networks. As for Twitter’s traffic being a majority non-web. In the comments I noted the differences between content-driven vs. user-driven sites.

How much? 10x? That’d put Twitter within parity of Yellow Pages. I actually think it’s more like an addition 1x (2x total) and reading between the lines of this article makes me think that.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/end-of-speculation-the-real-twitter-usage-numbers/

I’ll blog again in the future about why Twitter’s problems are related to Rails. :-)

]]> By: Clint Ecker http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-492971 Clint Ecker Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:12:25 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-492971 I actually forgot that Yellowpages is actually not tech-related, so it's probably vastly over-represented on Alexa. Perhaps Hulu too, to some extent. I actually forgot that Yellowpages is actually not tech-related, so it’s probably vastly over-represented on Alexa. Perhaps Hulu too, to some extent.

]]> By: Clint Ecker http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-492970 Clint Ecker Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:11:35 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-492970 I was going to come in and say the same thing Ed said. Alexa (and other sites like Compete) is usually way off, especially for tech sites. But considering these are all tech sites, they're probably all way off by a similar factor. I've also heard multiple times that API traffic is somewhere in the order of 10x (and possibly) more than their web site traffic. I was going to come in and say the same thing Ed said.

Alexa (and other sites like Compete) is usually way off, especially for tech sites. But considering these are all tech sites, they’re probably all way off by a similar factor.

I’ve also heard multiple times that API traffic is somewhere in the order of 10x (and possibly) more than their web site traffic.

]]> By: Ed Finkler http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-492958 Ed Finkler Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:51:40 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-492958 Alexa is probably the only thing you can use, but it's almost certainly wrong, because it only covers web site traffic. Twitter folks have told me -- and I believe them -- that the web site counts only for a small fraction of their traffic. And, as Sean said, the architectural requirements for Twitter are far different. Rails plays to the needs of the other sites you mention here. Solving the problems of Twitter with *any* language/framework would not be easy, and requires expertise outside the norm for the web app industry. Alexa is probably the only thing you can use, but it’s almost certainly wrong, because it only covers web site traffic.

Twitter folks have told me — and I believe them — that the web site counts only for a small fraction of their traffic.

And, as Sean said, the architectural requirements for Twitter are far different. Rails plays to the needs of the other sites you mention here. Solving the problems of Twitter with *any* language/framework would not be easy, and requires expertise outside the norm for the web app industry.

]]> By: Sean Coates http://terrychay.com/blog/article/top-rails.shtml#comment-492903 Sean Coates Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:14:29 +0000 http://terrychay.com/blog/?p=966#comment-492903 I think most of these just go to show that the problem with Twitter is not rails, but with their write-heavy architecture, small team, and tiny infrastructure. Scribd serves lots of medium-sized files in a weird flash interface. Yellow Pages serves lots of mostly-static content. Hulu and Justin.tv serve streaming video. Surely their backends are not Rails—and neither is twitter, for that matter, or so it would seem. Don't get me wrong, Twitter is great anti-Rails fodder, but their real problem is [hundreds or thousands of] thousands of writes per day, and proportionally more reads. Traditional technologies are read-centric. Twitter, Facebook, Tagged. Those are all write-heavy sites, and the others in your list are read-heavy. S I think most of these just go to show that the problem with Twitter is not rails, but with their write-heavy architecture, small team, and tiny infrastructure.

Scribd serves lots of medium-sized files in a weird flash interface.
Yellow Pages serves lots of mostly-static content.
Hulu and Justin.tv serve streaming video. Surely their backends are not Rails—and neither is twitter, for that matter, or so it would seem.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is great anti-Rails fodder, but their real problem is [hundreds or thousands of] thousands of writes per day, and proportionally more reads. Traditional technologies are read-centric.

Twitter, Facebook, Tagged. Those are all write-heavy sites, and the others in your list are read-heavy.

S

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