Slashdot Mirror

Even with Linux threads in mysql its still buggy.


I suggest you read this.

I am running this exact combination on a multitude of 4 and 8 cpu boxes without any problems (for as far as mysql is concerned, there are some other problems some of which are indeed related to locking. Most notably, bind 9 sucks)

Just in case anyone was wondering (haha), I did manage to track down a mirror of the original, higher quality version of the parody, here.

Disclaimer: I run the evangelism group at eBay.

I would love to be able to say that eBay or another other company of our size could launch a program as large as this so quickly, but we can't.

I suggest you read Jeremy Zawodny's post on this subject.

We have about 100 web services API calls that let you interact with almost every part of the eBay platform. That's pretty open.

As for free labor, we already have thousands of developers who are producing commercial applications. The sellers powered by these developers generate about 20% of all eBay.com listings. However, these are largely commercial developers.

I want more open source developers to join our community. I'm not going to say otherwise.

Why? Because I'm an open source developer myself. I've been using open source for about 10 years. I first saw Linux in 1993 on my friend's machine. I started using PHP in 1996 (php/fi) and MySQL soon after. (MySQL wasn't available when I first started working on web sites, people used mSQL instead.) I've written two books on PHP for O'Reilly.

There are lots of cool and innovative ways for all types of developers to use our web services and I just want to make sure that everyone is empowered do to so.

-adam

Adam Trachtenberg

Akamai for static content and take a look at livejournal's setup for dynamic content (master-master replication based on mysql).

Other people are much more qualified than I to answer the number of servers questions though.

since everyone bitches about how they have no content, let's see how many present their content, or rather: how many are black text on white background...

EVIL

* underlined+bold
* drop shadow
* cream background, not much of an improvement. some of the header text is glossy (shiney / embossed / see above one / other various "auto-artistic" trash ).
* the tiny images illustrating each entry, are dithered (i guess with a "web palette" [making it look even more horrible], which people stopped doing 5+ years ago) then jpg'd.
* cyan background (the name of 100% green + 100% blue)
* purple text, orange links. no, that's not better.
* yes i really want to be tortured with your family album pics
* half of the people leave directly (or die) with the header
* light yellow (piss-water yellow?) background.
* "I.Mter-
views" ?
i don't get it. dashes in headlines are satan.
* scary vector portrait
* horrible. evil. tasteless.
* scarier than the sixapart girl.
* yellow background.

GOOD

* pear/white background. title with first letter biggie, first line in different font from rest.
* greenish tasty tone over everything ...which i didn't follow. great. thanks. as for the equally bad link-colours being that horrible default-blue/purple, it was only around 10%. this was checking 70% of the a-list. methinks those popular people should hire someone to design their site

good design = pyros, don't remember any other. and yeah, it's not a blog.
says intersting things = ms g33k. who i'm not sure is a good thing to link, i won't link myself.

This calendar discussion made me wonder if there would already have been rumors of a Google calendar. Obviously, it would have to be called Galendar, wouldn't it?

Well, it turns out that even though some are waiting for it, (the Google Calendar), it would have a naming problem: Galendar.com exists already, and happens to be very unlike Gmail.com.

I don't need to post AC... I work at Friendster

Er... wasn't Friendster the place where somebody got fired for talking about implementation details on their blog? Are you sure posting as AC was unnecessary?

Of course an online store can use MySQL... After all, God uses MySQL.

Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo! met with Mark Jen last night and is confirming that he was fired. http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/004157.htm l

First off, nothing Mark said surprised me. Yes, he was fired from Google. It was directly related to his blog. He was employed there for just a couple of weeks.

here

First off, nothing Mark said surprised me. Yes, he was fired from Google. It was directly related to his blog. He was employed there for just a couple of weeks.

Here's an idea.

Learn how to use your OS before you ditch it.

It's a two-way street. Really.

First off, if your IE has the ability to do such things, you're a moron for letting it. Yes yes other /.'ers whine moan complain about bugs, but guess what? They happen. To the "best" of us. Double standards suck.

Second, under the assumption that you actually knew what you were doing, let's say that you were hit with a really nasty bit of spyware/adware that owned your system as you have outlined. You claim that you're running 10-12 pieces of anti-virus software to remove spyware. First off, you're an ignorant moron, second you have no concept of backing up, less you wouldn't be "losing" all of your data.

Yet the points STILL keep coming. "I have downloaded the latest versions of...GENTOO 4.3". Here's a hint, you're several releases behind. That's by far not the latest. So don't bother.

Oh, and if you're getting those isolinux errors that you describe, you've already answered your own question...your computer hardware is owned, isolinux tries to work, but fails, because your computer is a piece of crap.

Linux is not for you. Windows is not for you. Come back and whine when you have some room to speak about computing sucking all and being insecure. For now, it's clear that you're just a moron :)


(Now there's a piece of flaimbait if I've ever written one...but hey, it felt good, all right?)

There has to be something said for comodity hardware. Sure it doesn't have 24x7 support, and will (not might) fail more often, but you can't beat the price. For many jobs 3 or 4 comodity 'servers' can take the place of one expensive server and eliminate a single point of failure. If it works for Yahoo (zawodny.com) and Google (pcworld). If building up a box is beyond the scope of your IT guy maybe you need a new one who can do more than call Dell when it breaks.

My bad. I'd skimmed a few things on the web, and assumed that it had been switched off. Looks instead as though Google have changed how it works. See PageRank is dead. I need to investigate further.

People are really started to take notice of PostgreSQL:

Sterling Hughes' Blog
PostgreSQL
I've been seeing a lot of interest in PostgreSQL lately. Maybe its just the crowds I travel in, but the "buzz" reminds me of PHP right before it really took off. The database has a really good architecture, and the features are maturing nicely (Slony-I is looking sweet) I know that if I had a choice, I would currently look at PostgreSQL before I went on to evaluate other options.

The community is also very appealing. PostgreSQL is "Free as in BSD," and not developed by any one company - it is a true community project, and while there certainly is a meritocracy, there seems to be many ways to "get involved," including one of the best maintained TODO lists I've seen.

Keep your noses out, PostgreSQL hasn't gotten a lot of media attention or momentum to date (relatively speaking), but I have a feeling two years from now things are going to explode...
http://edwardbear.org/serendipity/archives/1216_Po stgreSQL.html

Even slow-moving dinosaurs like Jeremy Zawodny

Uhm, install the linux-threads port? Mind pointing at the discussion you are refering to in the archives btw? because they don't seem to show it..

You could take a peek here for some info on how to get that to run.

Now.. could you come with a source that is a bit more verifiable then some AC claim?

ayahner, I hope you've asked for permission to embed those images on your site (and then submit it to slashdot),
some people don't like that sort of thing

"About every year or so they declare it complete, and then implementation begins and we discover that it's actually not complete," Vixie told

Given what Paul Vixie is famous for, I'd say the lines are:

0 0 1 1 * /bin/sh -c "echo it's complete"
5 0 1 1 * /bin/sh -c "echo nevermind..."

he then continous:

1. Giving users a lot of space. Okay, this isn't rocket surgery. Disks have been getting cheaper for a long time now. Do you honestly expect to see other large (and even mid-tier) web mail providers not increasing their offerings to match or surpass those of Gmail? It seems like a no-brainer to me.
2. Proving virtual folders, conversations, search-based message lists, or whatever you want to call them. So we've got threading (not new) plus virtual folders (not new) in a single mail interface. Well, stop the presses! It's amazing to think that no mail clients have offered this functionality in the last 5-7 years! Oh, wait. They have.
3. Adding context-sensitive ads to your mail. Yippie! I'm gonna switch right away so I can start seeing SPAM that I cannot filter even in my previously non-spam mail. Sign me up!

see http://jeremy.zawodny.com/

It's a cute picture, but it's wrong. Every search engine should be tweaking its algorithms to give the users better (or less crappy) results. Google says it is. Therefore it's introducing human judgements and values.

That's what we do when we create machines, or software, whether we're aware of it or not. You're just as responsible for the consequences of your code as a programmer at Microsoft, or a hypothetical programmer who codes a car's Cruise Control to turn left every 1,000th mile. :)

You can argue Google is doing a good job, or a bad job, but you can't argue that it can't take responsibility for its value judgements. And you can't wish objections away as 'silly'.

...To say that Google needs to do something about this is silly

The remedy you propose is like telling people to jump out of the way when the J.Random Car makes its Cruise Control Left Turn. Hey, too bad you've been run over, pal! OK, you say - it's not the car maker's fault.

... The algorithms are working as intended.

So let's fix the humans who keep getting run over by random cars? Google's algorithms change every month or two. Some aspects of the algorithm (linkmaps) that worked as intended in 1998 don't work when the Web's full of people trying to rig Google's linkmap algorithm. But they aren't going to go away by wishing them away.

One of your 'solutions' is cute too:

... or make your own links to the "right" place.

Great! I'll ask my Mom to start a link farm now. Making the Web a safer place by giving everyone a nuclear weapon is a pretty interesting idea. But in the end it's going to be won by the people with the money, time and determination to build and fire the biggest arsenals.

Jeremy Zawody, a Yahoo employee, but speaking only for himself in his personal blog had this to say in defense of paid inclusion.

Unfortunately, if google changed their links now to recorded redirects, there would be a large outcry about privacy concerns. When google added a user cookie (the first popular search engine to do so.) people were concerned about someone's search behavior being tracked. When they started selling AdWords, people wondered if their google cookie could then expose their browsing habits. Right now, people are concerned about their Orkut project.

There are only so many times they can feign innocence on the matter.

3M makes some good reusable ear plugs that can cut up to 12.5 dB (halving the NRR value gives you a better picture of the actual possible attenuation). Only costs $1.38.

However, earplugs only cut out the noise that enters through the ear canal. Sound can still conduct through your cranium, and besides, you will hear the sound of your own breathing.

The better (but more expensive method) is to get ACTIVE noise cancelling headphones (not PASSIVE ones). These guys basically send out an antiphase signal of the ambient noise, effectively cancelling the noise out (well, not perfectly, but...). Sony sells good ones for $149. Or build your own.

Actually, I was trying to wrap up a seemingly endless thread in a slightly humorous way. But since you insist on keeping this thing alive in a way that is clearly inflammatory, let's take a closer look at this "loser" of a database called MySQL.

It's in heavy use on millions of installations around the world. NEC is using MySQL to power its Global Navigator Management Information System. For the sixth year running, the readers of Linux Journal voted MySQL "best database". Sabre uses MySQL to power its Air Shopping products, mission-critical enterprise services that "conduct online travel searches for Sabre Holdings customers such as Travelocity, airlines and travel agents worldwide.". Slashdot uses MySQL. Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodney seems to think that MySQL rocks. Yes, all these links are dredged up from the MySQL AB site. No, it's not propaganda - it's real companies, using MySQL to do real work. Simple as that. Sorry if this interferes with anybody's purist views on just how a database should be - I am not denying that MySQL has its share of bugs and design flaws, but my original point (and one that seems totally lost on the religious fundamentalists) is that the story is not that black and white. MySQL works very, very well as a real database, in many, many applications. No doubt PostgreSQL does too. Hopefully both will get better... but I am truly sick and tired of these people dragging out the same old list of "gotchas" for MySQL (which you could, let's face it, build for *any* product if you were just plain obsessive enough about it - which is apparently the case for the anti-MySQL database fundamentalists).

I think the main problem I have is that while the fundamentalists can point to a list of bugs and gotchas, all I can point to is a feature list that just keeps getting better (transactions, subselects and all the rest is now in there), and a set of very successful, large, competent companies, and millions of other installations that work reliably all day, every day. It's not as dramatic to say "it works" as it is to point up problems. MySQL is clearly being actively developed, and no matter what people say about "problems" with error codes (issues which I have never experienced myself, in four years of heavy, daily use) - no matter what the fundamentalists rant about, it's clear that MySQL works extremely well. Go tell Yahoo!, NEC, Sabre, Slashdot, and all the millions of other users that it's "not a real database". Go tell them that they are ignorant and clueless about what a database should be. Whatever.

Meantime, why not try getting a life.

He's a fairly well known blogger who works at Yahoo

As of 2002...

I see little reason to believe they've stopped.

I think the ads in the blogs are going for better Google PageRank scores, rather than for direct exposure. Most blogs don't get a whole lot of traffic, mostly just family and friends, if even that much. Only a very small percentage of that audience will click, and they surely won't fall for it more than once.

But google reads a lots of blogs. If a spammer gets their link onto a whole lot of blogs, Google PageRank would see hundreds or thousands of links to their site and bump up its rank. They exploit everyone's blog in order to improve their score on searches.

That's the theory anyway. Whether or not it works is another story.

Jeremy Zawodny on this:

SMTP Sender Authentication, Blog Spam, and PageRank
Cheap Viagra, Vicodin, Xanax, Prescription Drugs, and Penis Enlargement Pills!!!
Gureilla Tactics Against Blog Comment Spammers

Russell Beattie on this:
Googler Comments

Simon Willison on this:
Battling Comment Spam
Banning Google Comments

Michael Fagan on this:
Seven Ideas for a Spam Free Blog

Scott Johnson on this:
A Possible Blog Comment Spam Solution

Jeremy Zawodny on this:

SMTP Sender Authentication, Blog Spam, and PageRank
Cheap Viagra, Vicodin, Xanax, Prescription Drugs, and Penis Enlargement Pills!!!
Gureilla Tactics Against Blog Comment Spammers

Russell Beattie on this:
Googler Comments

Simon Willison on this:
Battling Comment Spam
Banning Google Comments

Michael Fagan on this:
Seven Ideas for a Spam Free Blog

Scott Johnson on this:
A Possible Blog Comment Spam Solution

Jeremy Zawodny on this:

SMTP Sender Authentication, Blog Spam, and PageRank
Cheap Viagra, Vicodin, Xanax, Prescription Drugs, and Penis Enlargement Pills!!!
Gureilla Tactics Against Blog Comment Spammers

Russell Beattie on this:
Googler Comments

Simon Willison on this:
Battling Comment Spam
Banning Google Comments

Michael Fagan on this:
Seven Ideas for a Spam Free Blog

Scott Johnson on this:
A Possible Blog Comment Spam Solution

Jeremy Zawodny on this:

SMTP Sender Authentication, Blog Spam, and PageRank
Cheap Viagra, Vicodin, Xanax, Prescription Drugs, and Penis Enlargement Pills!!!
Gureilla Tactics Against Blog Comment Spammers

Russell Beattie on this:
Googler Comments

Simon Willison on this:
Battling Comment Spam
Banning Google Comments

Michael Fagan on this:
Seven Ideas for a Spam Free Blog

Scott Johnson on this:
A Possible Blog Comment Spam Solution

Clickable

Thanks for the links to Google and Yahoo.. How about a Link to the article?

That article links this rant...
Page Rank dead!

I still find Google to be very very unspammed and accurate.

If you want some of the scoop on what Yahoo is up to, you should probably be reading Jeremy Zawodny's blog, for example:

* Y! Blogs releases in Korea
* Y! Unix messenger group begun
* Y! Search group begun

And other goodies :)

If you want some of the scoop on what Yahoo is up to, you should probably be reading Jeremy Zawodny's blog, for example:

* Y! Blogs releases in Korea
* Y! Unix messenger group begun
* Y! Search group begun

And other goodies :)

If you want some of the scoop on what Yahoo is up to, you should probably be reading Jeremy Zawodny's blog, for example:

* Y! Blogs releases in Korea
* Y! Unix messenger group begun
* Y! Search group begun

And other goodies :)

If you want some of the scoop on what Yahoo is up to, you should probably be reading Jeremy Zawodny's blog, for example:

* Y! Blogs releases in Korea
* Y! Unix messenger group begun
* Y! Search group begun

And other goodies :)

" Bullcrap "

In all fairness, that article appeared in issue one of the FreeBSD News, circa 1997. That's not a good or honest way to disprove that Yahoo's ongoing use of FreeBSD is a legacy decision.

Reading FreeBSD postings from a Yahoo engineer's blog is an excellent way to understand FreeBSD's strengths and appeal, however. Doesn't look to me like they're itchy to migrate.

and let's not forget VACUUMDB.
Want to claim back all this space lost when you deleted something? guess what, you'll have to lock your database. greeeaaat.

And it's so sloooooooow that now i have to dump/restore the DB every week.

And don't even mention database replication: you can do that on mySQL (with the logs), while the postgreSQL team is still struggling with this one.

Perhaps :-)

I wanted to say that the existing Unix/Linux shells (1) are mutually incompatible (2) are often a pain to program (bash, uh) and use, (3) and some big vendors still keep the oldest and least friendly.

(1) Yes, they are. (Personally, I use bash for exactly that reason, since it keeps me from remembering to many syntaxes as bash is essentially sh++) (2) Well, I think bash is pretty ok. But of course, there could be lots of room for improvement. And yes, since you mentioned it, PATH (and CLASSPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc) being colon-separated instead of newline separated makes it harder to manipulate it without a few nifty aliases. They should be standard and builtin to make things easier. (3) Well, trading backwards compatibility with user-friendliness is not always so easy. But since most shell-scripts start with #!/bin/sh anyway, it would make sense to give the users a more friendly shell by default.

Why do you think yet another new shell will fix that?

And as we both know, there are plenty of alternatives already. In particular, the following shells are all "better" than sh for end-users: tcsh, ksh, bash, zsh, es, and tclsh. It's not obvious that a new shell would improve the situation more than just add to the confusion.

But, for example, some aspects of the CLI could benefit a lot from a insightfull redisign.

I most definitely agree. But designing a "better shell" is very hard, and most people fail (look at the (lack of) success of es for example). The tradeoffs between terseness (for command-line use), regularity (for scripting), familiarity (to get anyone to use it at all), simplicity (to be useful for newcomers), and expressivity (to be the best tool for experts) makes it as much an experiment in psychology as in programming.

I doubt that we will ever reach shell-nirvana in unix (or any other place for that matter, but windows has a large advantage here, one of the things that holds us back, is that we still care about being able to run the shell over telnet to a teletype, but in windows they will probably make the default user experience to be more like e.g. emacs interaction mode, nice menus and all... By the way, have you ever looked at XMLterm? It's nice, and certainly innovative :-) Why not combine it with XML shell to get away from the pipe-filter on characters/lines only paradigm?).

The current unix-shells are the result of decades of stepwise improvements on a really good idea (at the time), and continues to be so much more useful than any of their alternatives that it's going to be hard to penetrate the "market"...

Not that it wouldn't be worth it though :-)

I'm not interested in a language war, but your take on what CGI.pm is for is a little off. If you want to "talk CGI" (which is a very simple protocol for communicating with the Web server and ultimately with a client), you use CGI.pm to do so.

If you want to dynamically generate content for the Web, you use Bricolage, Slash or any of the other fine packages out there. Bricolage is especially nice, as it is based on HTML::Mason, a very nice templating system for HTML. Slash, you may know from some of the sites that were built with it....

You can find a nice bit of discussion on the topic, here.

Of course, if you just want to give up on Perl because you ran across CGI.pm and thought it was ugly, that's fine too.

I read some more blog articles on that site, and it seems that he did find a solution to the FreeBSD/LinuxThreads problem; see this link.

Jeremy Zawodny, who works at Yahoo, wrote an interesting article in his weblog a few months ago. It chronicles his experience with MySQL under FreeBSD and MySQL's problems with threading under FreeBSD. It will be interesting to see if 5.0 improves these things significantly.

spampd: Spam Proxy Daemon

spampdacts as an SMTP relay server, and in the process of relaying a message it passes the mail through SA. If SA decides the mail could be spam, then spampd will ask SA to add some headers and a report to the message indicating it's spam and why. spampd is written in Perl and should theoretically run on any platform supported by Perl.

pictured here?

Not as fast connection

Not as fast connection