...but how much revenue does SpringSource actually get out of it? If it's like a bunch of other open source tools, there's a very small percentage of customers that make the leap from "user" to "paying user".
...since that's that database on which Greenplum is based. PostgreSQL 8.4 is coming out soon and looks like it's got a lot of improvements. Too bad replication didn't make it in... hopefully in 8.5.
One of the improvements that looks good is the parallelized restore; RubyForge's upgrade from PostgreSQL 8.2 to 8.3 took 30 minutes to restore the db and it seems like this feature will speed that up considerably.
A while back I worked on a program to find duplicated code - CPD (copy/paste detector). It discards comments and whitespace and (optionally) normalizes variable names... but probably wouldn't deal well with tokens being moved around. There's a chapter on it in my PMD book, too.
What was interesting were some of the performance optimizations that folks came up with. My first version used JavaSpaces to distribute the computation - but subsequent versions (thanks to Brian Ewins and Steve Hawkins) were fast enough to run on one just machine. Good times.
> JavaFX has been a solution looking for a problem
There certainly was a lot of energy poured into it, though. I feel bad for folks like Josh Marinacci, who has been working on it for a while. Seems like every other Java Posse episode had some mention of JavaFX and its progress (or lack thereof).
> there are still many things for which language runtime (VM) > has enough effect to make some implementations unattractice to use.
I agree that the Ruby C implementation has these shortcomings... but I still feel that a large app will farm out things to other processes anyway. I'm thinking memcached vs a weak-referenced threadsafe in-process cache, perhaps. If you start with memcached from the get-go you can move it to another machine, add more memory, etc.
Also, writing correct in-process threadsafe code is a tough row to hoe. Unless your name is Doug Lea:-)
Perhaps a question here is also "do the advantages of the language outweigh the implementation shortcomings". In Ruby's case I think the answer is yes.
> Scaling to that size is a solved problem with Java/PHP.
Java/PHP apps have scaled to that size, but to do it they used the same techniques that a Ruby app would use - caching, async queues, sharding, etc.
> that alone means that it will never scale the way Java can.
That means that to scale a Ruby app you may need to use something other than a thread-per-task model. Java runs into the same problem at a certain point - a JVM (and the hardware it's running on) can only handle so many concurrent native threads. At that point you need to scale using more hardware, processes, message queues, etc.
I cancelled my subscription last year because the player interaction/interface/experience/whatever was just dreadful. Heading over there now to sign up for this year, go Yankees!
Re:Should have used PHP.
on
Twitter On Scala
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
> If your threading model is nasty or your memory access > features too coarse grained or a number of other things get designed > wrong at the language level and are by specification broken then you have problems
In Ruby's case, you overcome this by using processes rather than threads.
> On top of that if you don't have competition in your compiler space > then it doesn't matter if it's not part of the language spec any non > scalable parts of the compiler implementation is by default a problem with your language.
At the level we're talking about - 8M users - I think that compilation optimizations/bottlenecks are not the issue. It's about architecture. It doesn't matter if you're writing assembly language, you'll still need to scale out of one machine's memory space. I'm thinking stuff like Werner Vogel's discussions of CAP.
> A language is more than just its syntax it's > also the available implementation and tools
Yes, and I'd say that there's also the infrastructure surrounding the language - protocols, operating systems, caching tools, etc. Ruby is well suited to integrating with those sorts of things, which is why there are myriad techniques available for scaling Ruby apps.
All that said, I agree with your proposition - that some languages are well suited to some tasks. As some folks here have suggested, Twitter's messaging bus sounds like a perfect Erlang app.
Re:Should have used PHP.
on
Twitter On Scala
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
> Ruby is a language. Languages usually don't have problems with scalability.
Quite right. An application with 8 million users will have scalability challenges regardless of what type of language opcodes are being executed. At some point it's all about architecture.
...on the JavaPosse Google group here. Some talk about what this might mean for Netbeans, as one of the JavaPosse guys (Tor Norbye) is (was?) on the NB team.
Also, what would this do for the massive JavaCC book market? Expand it, I hope!
I've plugged this before... but Sphinx is a great full text search engine. I've helped with a couple of production deployments and folks have been happy with it. The Ruby on Rails integration is good and the API is easy to use... for a simple demo including excerpt highlighting, try some searches on my military reading list site.
> Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is > too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag
The interesting thing is that it's the weight of the chain that holds the anchor, not one of the flukes catching on something. A successful anchoring is when the anchor is on the bottom, in mud, and there are xx fathoms of chain piled up on top of it. Leastwise, 'twas so in my day.
Once we were getting underway for a dependent's cruise and the CO was on the bridge and shouted "let's go!" and clapped his hands. An alert bridge talker heard him, misunderstood, and dutifully relayed "let go!" to the foc'sle. So the anchor was dropped about 100 yards off the pier (at 4-5 knots) and fun times ensued. The CO handled it well and had the grace to make a sheepish announcement a few minutes later on the 1MC. Good times.
> there does seem to be an early stigma on Obama's appointees and corruption
Whoa there buddy! Haven't you heard? Dissent is no longer the highest form of patriotism. Also, everyone remove your "if you're not outraged you're not paying attention" bumper stickers. All is well.
...is probably a good read. He has a lively writing style; it kind of reminds me of Bertrand Meyer's "Object Oriented Software Construction". Anyhow, I've got both this book and Faroult's "The Art of SQL"... both are excellent.
The most ludicrous aspect of these protesters is their utter lack of understanding that the mortgage bailout benefits everyone - even them. Let me explain to these unpatriotic whiners how the economy works: The money that government is now wisely investing in our mortgage system will free up billions of extra dollars in spending by Americans like me, which will directly create jobs. For you economic illiterates, this is what experts call the "multiplier effect."
For example, now that my mortgage worries are over, I was able to afford the down payment on a sweet new jet ski, directly creating jobs at Coralville Kawasaki. I also purchased a few items from my friend and local small business entrepreneur Randy Hansgard. Randy used that money to make high tech capital improvements in his business, like new grow-lights and an Ohaus 3-beam electronic scale. After I wrecked the jet ski, this created jobs at the Coralville Kawasaki service department. I also splurged by sending Linda a thoughtful Jenny Craig gift certificate with my partial January mortgage payment, because she's really been packing on the pounds lately.
Slashdot Mirror
...but how much revenue does SpringSource actually get out of it? If it's like a bunch of other open source tools, there's a very small percentage of customers that make the leap from "user" to "paying user".
> Republican conservatives move to block stem cell research
It's embryonic stem cell research that conservatives don't like. Adult stem cell research is fine.
...since that's that database on which Greenplum is based. PostgreSQL 8.4 is coming out soon and looks like it's got a lot of improvements. Too bad replication didn't make it in... hopefully in 8.5.
One of the improvements that looks good is the parallelized restore; RubyForge's upgrade from PostgreSQL 8.2 to 8.3 took 30 minutes to restore the db and it seems like this feature will speed that up considerably.
A while back I worked on a program to find duplicated code - CPD (copy/paste detector). It discards comments and whitespace and (optionally) normalizes variable names... but probably wouldn't deal well with tokens being moved around. There's a chapter on it in my PMD book, too.
What was interesting were some of the performance optimizations that folks came up with. My first version used JavaSpaces to distribute the computation - but subsequent versions (thanks to Brian Ewins and Steve Hawkins) were fast enough to run on one just machine. Good times.
> Who else read this headline and immediately thought of Arrested Development?
"What have we always said is the most important thing?"
"Umm... breakfast?"
"Family!"
and
"Like I've always said, there's money in the banana stand."
"Well, not any more. I burned it down."
> 1) the Russians and Chinese may have access to secrets vital to our national security
Notice that China is on the radar (so to speak) for our Navy; witness the inclusion of The Great Wall at Sea on the Navy reading list.
Rand Simberg asks why express it in terms of percentage of GDP rather than in terms of percentage of federal budget?. The budget is something that the president has some control over...
> JavaFX has been a solution looking for a problem
There certainly was a lot of energy poured into it, though. I feel bad for folks like Josh Marinacci, who has been working on it for a while. Seems like every other Java Posse episode had some mention of JavaFX and its progress (or lack thereof).
> Why not translate? COBOL to C++ translators [google.com]
There's also a COBOL grammar for JavaCC that could be used for that very purpose...
> there are still many things for which language runtime (VM)
> has enough effect to make some implementations unattractice to use.
I agree that the Ruby C implementation has these shortcomings... but I still feel that a large app will farm out things to other processes anyway. I'm thinking memcached vs a weak-referenced threadsafe in-process cache, perhaps. If you start with memcached from the get-go you can move it to another machine, add more memory, etc.
Also, writing correct in-process threadsafe code is a tough row to hoe. Unless your name is Doug Lea :-)
Perhaps a question here is also "do the advantages of the language outweigh the implementation shortcomings". In Ruby's case I think the answer is yes.
> Scaling to that size is a solved problem with Java/PHP.
Java/PHP apps have scaled to that size, but to do it they used the same techniques that a Ruby app would use - caching, async queues, sharding, etc.
> that alone means that it will never scale the way Java can.
That means that to scale a Ruby app you may need to use something other than a thread-per-task model. Java runs into the same problem at a certain point - a JVM (and the hardware it's running on) can only handle so many concurrent native threads. At that point you need to scale using more hardware, processes, message queues, etc.
I cancelled my subscription last year because the player interaction/interface/experience/whatever was just dreadful. Heading over there now to sign up for this year, go Yankees!
> If your threading model is nasty or your memory access
> features too coarse grained or a number of other things get designed
> wrong at the language level and are by specification broken then you have problems
In Ruby's case, you overcome this by using processes rather than threads.
> On top of that if you don't have competition in your compiler space
> then it doesn't matter if it's not part of the language spec any non
> scalable parts of the compiler implementation is by default a problem with your language.
At the level we're talking about - 8M users - I think that compilation optimizations/bottlenecks are not the issue. It's about architecture. It doesn't matter if you're writing assembly language, you'll still need to scale out of one machine's memory space. I'm thinking stuff like Werner Vogel's discussions of CAP.
> A language is more than just its syntax it's
> also the available implementation and tools
Yes, and I'd say that there's also the infrastructure surrounding the language - protocols, operating systems, caching tools, etc. Ruby is well suited to integrating with those sorts of things, which is why there are myriad techniques available for scaling Ruby apps.
All that said, I agree with your proposition - that some languages are well suited to some tasks. As some folks here have suggested, Twitter's messaging bus sounds like a perfect Erlang app.
> Ruby is a language. Languages usually don't have problems with scalability.
Quite right. An application with 8 million users will have scalability challenges regardless of what type of language opcodes are being executed. At some point it's all about architecture.
...on the JavaPosse Google group here. Some talk about what this might mean for Netbeans, as one of the JavaPosse guys (Tor Norbye) is (was?) on the NB team.
Also, what would this do for the massive JavaCC book market? Expand it, I hope!
> try some searches on my military reading list site.
Doh. Make that here.
I've plugged this before... but Sphinx is a great full text search engine. I've helped with a couple of production deployments and folks have been happy with it. The Ruby on Rails integration is good and the API is easy to use... for a simple demo including excerpt highlighting, try some searches on my military reading list site.
> Howdy from a guy who served on an SSBN
As the other commenter said, thanks for serving! That's hard duty.
> Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is
> too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag
The interesting thing is that it's the weight of the chain that holds the anchor, not one of the flukes catching on something. A successful anchoring is when the anchor is on the bottom, in mud, and there are xx fathoms of chain piled up on top of it. Leastwise, 'twas so in my day.
Once we were getting underway for a dependent's cruise and the CO was on the bridge and shouted "let's go!" and clapped his hands. An alert bridge talker heard him, misunderstood, and dutifully relayed "let go!" to the foc'sle. So the anchor was dropped about 100 yards off the pier (at 4-5 knots) and fun times ensued. The CO handled it well and had the grace to make a sheepish announcement a few minutes later on the 1MC. Good times.
> Please tag story as romaniaftw
Bine... foarte bine!
> there does seem to be an early stigma on Obama's appointees and corruption
Whoa there buddy! Haven't you heard? Dissent is no longer the highest form of patriotism. Also, everyone remove your "if you're not outraged you're not paying attention" bumper stickers. All is well.
...is probably a good read. He has a lively writing style; it kind of reminds me of Bertrand Meyer's "Object Oriented Software Construction". Anyhow, I've got both this book and Faroult's "The Art of SQL"... both are excellent.
> The book, not the fun-but-not-faithful movie.
Starship Troopers is on the Navy reading list in the junior enlisted section. Look around and you'll see Ender's Game there too...
> Tipping Point
Note that "Tipping Point" is also on the Navy reading list. "Blink" is on the Coast Guard reading list as well. Gladwell, getting it done...
> How about stimulating jobs that actually produce something that others might want?
Fool! You've got it all wrong! I refer you to Iowahawk's Memo to America's Irresponsible Tea Party Whiners: STFU. A sample:
See how it works? Now, go pay more taxes!