Joel shows that StackOverflow is (||was?) running on 2 servers (+1 backup) using C# and SQL Server. Impressive :-) seek to 24:56 to see the full performance+tech table.
There is also a Perl+Perl6 mentioned in this talk, seek to 38:00 to hear the #1 thing you should never do...
So I've decided to give the twitter a try.
(huh, that was short. I'm probably getting adapted to 140chars...)
Of course someone else already did it, what were you expecting Jozef? Well the same thing and I knew it (just read on), but it took some time to find it.
What I'm talking about? Quintura a search engine based on tag cloud. I've seen this kid of searching before in Open Clip Art so I was really not expecting to come up with something new at all, sorry, next time I'll fail again, don't worry. ;-) The idea is really nice. Using tag cloud to hint search directions - positive and also negative keywords. Cool!
Anything else? Yes! Besides some more exercise with JQuery my little project opened my eyes. I've started to look for some more search engines. Out of my mind I knew just couple of them ~10. So I went to wikipedia search engines which lists couple more and finally to wikipedia list of search engines.
And? Google, Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia. This guy has really limited view of the topic! Exactly... So I looked a little deeper and found the top 100 list. 100? Sounds awful. Well according to GoshMe there are more than half a million search engines out there on the Internet. Believe or not let's not count them by hand.
And finally I found this - Segev, Elad (2008). "Search engines and power: A politics of online (mis-) information." Webology, 5(2), Article 54. Available at: http://www.webology.ir/2008/v5n2/a54.html. If you are not fan of reading long articles here are some citations from it to support the motivation:
One other information caught my attention - Quaero a build in progress that got couple M€. According to the page 298, according to the wikipedia 99 from FR government (which is not listed on the official page at all). One million more or less ;-) definitely it is interesting budget.
And the takeovers? There Is More Than One Way To Do It. There Is More Than One View Of The World. And that the pages one visits are shaping an reshaping the personal world and opinions. Obvious? Yes, now yes for me. :-)
and there is no ultimate truth, and... From the computer point of view - it is a chaos. Fortunately from the human point of view it is beautiful. Some will replace the word beautiful for colourful, some for diverse, some for always different, some for pain and some for hell...
We are now right there in this digital age. The are 10 types of people that either understand the binary or not. You like something or not, you use something or you don't, you are right or wrong, you do right or you do wrong, you follow someone or you don't care, you love someone or you hate. Or? No? Or mostly yes? Mostly no? More yes than no?
Now look at it this different way - the world is base 4. Yes? No? Probably yes? More likely no? :-) Who can say for sure? But you are free to choose any of the four answers. Where did I went for the inspiration? In DNA - ACGT. It is there inside us!
I don't mind if you tell me it is bullshit. For someone it is, for someone it is not, some will say most likely it is and some that there is a hope for that idea. :-)
(actually there is also another state - no opinion, but shhhhh don't tell anyone that it's possible to ignore the world)
I feel like no one ever told the truth to me
About growing up and what a struggle it would be
In my tangled state of mind,
I've been looking back to find where I went wrong.
-- Queen - Too Much Love Will Kill You
There are people that say reinventing the wheel is bad, that it shouldn't be done. That we should find an existing project and contribute there. Some even say that there are too many variants and choices of CPAN modules that are doing the same thing, and it is wrong. That it is contra productive and scary for the newbies. There are people that call them self CPAN police that hunt down new uploaders trying to show them how many mistakes they made...
Now look at the kids. Those experience deferred success 1000 times a day. Even if they don't fail they play most of the day. They play by repeating, copying from adults or other kids. They speak the same sentences wrongly over and over. They do the same things over and over. They fail over and over. They are just kids. Every one knows that this is how they learn. Next to the kids there is always some adult. Until the kids are really small, the adults seems like perfect to them, because they just do everything perfect.
After growing up, one day, kids finds out that the adults are not perfect. They don't do always the right thinks. And they don't know everything. The trouble is that there are many adults that think that they perfect are. But that is different topic. Let's go back to childhood.
To be precise the Perl programmer childhood. Perl programmer life. The difference is everyone is free to be born to the Perl world and grow up here. The other nice thing is that everyone is free to leave it and go and live a different life.
/me a Perl kid. I like to play, I like to try out things. I like to reinvent the wheel over and over. I don't mind that there are Perl grown-ups that do the same thing much better than I do. I don't mind that I will hit the ground while doing weird experiments. And? It's fun and everybody has to fall the first time. (and second and third and ...) And I'm just a kid!
The Perl world is different to the "reality". The biggest difference is that it's hard to see the age. Everyone is growing with a different rate and some will never grow up - like me :-P
So I would like encourage all kids to come play with toys, throw them away if they don't like them any more and not be ashamed that they "just" build "another" sandcastle. You can always destroy it and build another one, don't you?
Now back to the desert of the real. There is a plenty of legacy Perl code every where around us. Legacy sometimes mean undocumented, unmaintained, badly written or just not understood. Sending bad words and blaming people that wrote it will not fix the situation. Everyone is doing the best he can, considering his experience, mood, moon phase, weather conditions, ... at the time of writing the code. If the makes the job done, it is good. If it makes someone happy writing it, it is even better. And if there is no replacement, it is the best code ever!
We got a new smoking regulations:
Please kindly note that, due to a decision by consensus - which was made at the residents meeting yesterday- from now on *SMOKING is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN* in the whole building (it's also not allowed to smoke on the balcony anymore). *SMOKING is ONLY allowed in front of the Spar Supermarket (where the ash tray is located)!!!* Thanks for your cooperation!
This reminded me if this part from IT Crowd:
perl -le '$s=3000; $t+=($s*=1.032)*12 for 30..65; print int($s),"€"; print int($t),"€";' int($sum),"€";' 9232€ 2447289€
2.4mio€ => more than fair price (3000€) for one life of currently 30 years old person living in Austria where inflation rate was 3.2%.
s/3000/$dream_salary/ s/1.032/$inflation_in_your_currency/ s/30/$your_age/
To get the price for your whole life...
Stupid heh? But fun!
Or may be not. Just compare the total sum next time you read that goverment wasted 100mio€ and you will know how many men-lifes they threw away.
Benjamin Zander on music and passion
In case of Perl, you ain't seen nothing yet!
