Scalability problem

Hi,

I have heard that ROR has scalability problems. I have heard that
Twitter which used rails has abandoned it and is moving to PHP. Is it
true?

Twitter had a problem because they were not prepared for their
popularity. From what I have heard, their scalability issues stem
mainly from an improper database schema.

They are also NOT moving to PHP. The last I’ve heard, they were
changing their backend over to Scala, which is a functional language
that runs on the JavaVM. Here is a good article about the
‘scalability’ issue:

http://work.tinou.com/2009/06/scalas-dirty-little-secret-to-scalability.html

From everything I’ve heard, Rails has scalability issues if you don’t
put some thought into the application building process. On the Ruby
side on things, RubyEE is said to have some benefits for speeding up
Ruby execution.

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 10:10 AM, p_W[email protected] wrote:

Twitter had a problem because they were not prepared for their
popularity. From what I have heard, their scalability issues stem
mainly from an improper database schema.

Their main scalability issue was the messaging system they wrote in
Ruby to control the application backend and this is the part of their
infrastructure that got replaced by a Scala equivalent. High end
messaging systems in Ruby are still years away from the ones you can
find in Java.

Maurício Linhares
http://codeshooter.wordpress.com/ | http://twitter.com/mauriciojr

Karthikeyan wrote:

Hi,

I have heard that ROR has scalability problems. I have heard that
Twitter which used rails has abandoned it and is moving to PHP. Is it
true?

AFAIK this forum was created for Rails developers to help other Rails
developers with problems. So if you’re looking for help on how to scale
Rails, maybe starting off with such a negative comment isn’t really in
your best interest.

A couple of corrections though: Last I heard Twitter was implementing,
at least, some parts of their site using Scala. I’ve not heard anything
about them using PHP. Also, Twitter is just one example, and not a very
good one at that. Let’s not forget that there are many sites using Rails
successfully, and I’d wager that a good number of those are handling a
lot more traffic than anything you’ll be building.

If you’re truly interested in how to scale Rails applications, rather
than trying to insult the people you’re hoping to get help from, you
might enjoy this series sponsored by New Relic:

http://railslab.newrelic.com/scaling-rails

Conrad T. wrote:

If you’re truly interested in how to scale Rails applications, rather
than trying to insult the people you’re hoping to get help from, you
might enjoy this series sponsored by New Relic:

http://railslab.newrelic.com/scaling-rails

Actually, one would use New Relic to monitor to Rails application

Actually, I was referring to (see link) the excellent screencast series
hosted by Greg Pollack, which was sponsored by New Relic. I was not
referring to the New Relic monitoring solutions.

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Robert W. <
[email protected]> wrote:

Rails, maybe starting off with such a negative comment isn’t really in
your best interest.

A couple of corrections though: Last I heard Twitter was implementing,
at least, some parts of their site using Scala. I’ve not heard anything
about them using PHP. Also, Twitter is just one example, and not a very
good one at that. Let’s not forget that there are many sites using Rails
successfully, and I’d wager that a good number of those are handling a
lot more traffic than anything you’ll be building.

I agree with you 100% because Hulu.com and Shopify.com are built on Ruby
on Rails to name a few. Furthermore, the Ruby VMs are getting much
better
than MRI with JRuby and forthcoming VMs: Maglev and MacRuby. In time,
we will get there.

-Conrad

If you’re truly interested in how to scale Rails applications, rather
than trying to insult the people you’re hoping to get help from, you
might enjoy this series sponsored by New Relic:

http://railslab.newrelic.com/scaling-rails

Actually, one would use New Relic to monitor to Rails application

Why on earth should I insult people who are helping me with rails? I
did hear Twitter speak against rials and hence I asked this query. Any
way if you do feel insulted, so be it. Its your brain and I don’t have
control of it.

On Jul 27, 6:29 pm, Robert W. [email protected]

Karthikeyan wrote:

Why on earth should I insult people who are helping me with rails? I
did hear Twitter speak against rials and hence I asked this query. Any
way if you do feel insulted, so be it. Its your brain and I don’t have
control of it.

On Jul 27, 6:29�pm, Robert W. [email protected]

Maybe “insult” was too strong a word, but all I meant by that was that
your post could have just as easily been framed from a positive, rather
than negative, perspective.

Rather and titling the post “Scalability problem” maybe “Resources for
scaling applications using Rails.” And, rather than point out an,
obviously, sore spot with implications such as “Twitter threw out Rails
because it can’t scale.” Maybe ask about what sites are successfully
scaling Rails applications and how they are doing it.

Next time I have a question, I will mail you, you re phrase it and put
it up on this group.

On Jul 29, 9:30 pm, Robert W. [email protected]