[HN Gopher] YC Library
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       YC Library
        
       Author : alexzeitler
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2023-08-18 21:00 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com)
        
       | kinduff wrote:
       | It hurt itself in confusion! Here's an archived version:
       | 
       | https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.ycombinator.com/li...
        
         | sillysaurusx wrote:
         | It's poetic that the only content which survived the archiving
         | process was the text. (The videos seem dead, though I didn't
         | try many.)
        
         | sandslash wrote:
         | hah!
        
       | zvmaz wrote:
       | How come Hacker News rarely is down although the traffic seems to
       | be huge?
        
         | consumer451 wrote:
         | Because HN serves only text(html & css) with no javascript.
         | (edit: a tiny amount of efficient js)
         | 
         | Frontpage right now = 35.67KB
         | 
         | This page is currently 18.34KB.
         | 
         | It's one of the only interesting sites left on the web that is
         | 100% usable on 2G (EDGE) mobile data.
        
           | sillysaurusx wrote:
           | I assure you, this isn't the reason. And I'm saying that as
           | someone who once put all their effort into maintaining a
           | clone of HN, mostly out of curiosity.
           | 
           | HN is the most responsive message board in the world. And by
           | responsive I mean you feel the effect of upvotes and
           | downvotes instantly. There is caching, but almost none of it
           | is at the expense of the feel of the site. This is unlike
           | Reddit, where although votes do have a quick effect, the
           | algorithm is much simpler and less sensitive to sudden shifts
           | in public opinion. On HN you can win and lose debates in a
           | matter of minutes, and it's thanks to the responsiveness that
           | large websites seem not to have.
        
           | notRobot wrote:
           | HN is usable without JS, but is served with JS scripts by
           | default.
        
             | consumer451 wrote:
             | Oh wow, I could have swore... thanks.
             | 
             | Still though, just 4 pages of js. I guess what I was
             | thinking is typical insane tracking framework and tracking
             | stuff.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/hn.js
        
               | sillysaurusx wrote:
               | If only people would stop underestimating how hard those
               | four pages of js are. If you study it carefully you'll
               | notice some real time reloading type stuff for /newest,
               | because it's so important for finding good stories when
               | you're wading through hundreds. You can just click hide
               | and see the next story instead of having to go from one
               | page to the next.
               | 
               | The smallness is evidence of skill, not (merely)
               | simplicity.
        
               | consumer451 wrote:
               | I was not trying to say it is simple, just that is very
               | lightweight.
        
               | sillysaurusx wrote:
               | Sorry, I didn't mean it quite so pointedly. :) I just
               | hope the world appreciates lightweight again someday.
        
               | consumer451 wrote:
               | [delayed]
        
         | sillysaurusx wrote:
         | Because the team is absurdly talented. Dan once wrote his own
         | Node debugger for emacs, and some features were way nicer than
         | even Chrome devtools provides today.
         | 
         | https://github.com/gruseom/numen
         | 
         | There are also very few moving parts. In arc you have access to
         | the entire stack from http request to http response, at the raw
         | text level. The goal is simply to generate the text as quickly
         | as possible. And racket turned out to be a good long term bet;
         | people underestimate how optimized it is.
        
       | rabbits_2002 wrote:
       | isnt there already a podcast called Office Hours with Tim
       | Heidecker
        
       | benatkin wrote:
       | ycombinator.com giving itself the hug of death =)
        
         | atleastoptimal wrote:
         | DDoS, the D stands for DDoS
        
       | orliesaurus wrote:
       | I am sure we can find a company in the YC Library that can help
       | with the traffic spike
        
       | samstave wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | snowmaker wrote:
       | We got the hug of death, thanks HN! Working on improving load
       | times :)
        
         | sillysaurusx wrote:
         | I once took down HN by submitting /topcolors. The moment it
         | reached the front page, HN ground to a halt. I quickly fired
         | off an email to sctb who cleared it up within a minute or two
         | (by wiping it off the front page, not by fixing the caching,
         | which is totally valid), otherwise it could have taken much
         | longer to figure out what had happened.
         | 
         | Caching is a hard thing to get right. I try to use "vegeta
         | attack" to load test pages as I make them, but the measurement
         | is the problem. Unless you already have a profiling pipeline
         | set up, it's a bit hard to fix the issue quickly.
         | 
         | One trick is to comment out half the site in a binary fashion
         | until it suddenly loads, then keep bisecting until it stops
         | loading. It's crude but only takes log(n) steps and can be done
         | quickly. You'd have to do it in production, but it might be
         | easier than guessing.
        
       | lxe wrote:
       | A self DDoS! Neat!
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-18 23:01 UTC)