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YC News Unavailable...
27 points by gibsonf1 on Sept 27, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 131 comments
I've been getting increasing loss of news yc availability in the last few days. Is it just me, or is the server getting overloaded? (This was espeically a bummer as I was filling out the YC application)



Mzscheme is core dumping. We may have discovered some new bug. Rtm is investigating.


This seems to be a recurring theme with Lisp implementations. Reddit switched from CMUCL to Python (threading); Vendetta Online switched from SBCL to Erlang (GC/memory leaks). Other people have hit major snags e.g. with Haskell/GHC runtime bugs (Wager Labs; switched to Erlang). Use a massively complex runtime, hit bugs that can't be fixed (in a start-up timeframe, anyhow)?


If more people used LISP runtime systems, then the bugs would be found more readily. Thus leading to fewer defections from LISP to Blubs.


"positive network externalities:

http://www.welton.it/articles/programming_language_economics...

One of the reasons we try and convince other people to use our tools.


Not necessarily -- some organizations would patch it themselves in a private branch just to maintain an edge, assuming they have the expertise in-house. I've done this before with GPLed libraries. That's assuming you can even track down the problem -- Vendetta Online couldn't pin it down well enough to submit a coherent bug report (in fairness, SBCL is a monstrosity; just as a comparison, how many Rails developers could track down CRuby bugs?).

I wouldn't call Erlang and Python Blubs.


> how many Rails developers could track down CRuby bugs?

Probably a lot of them, if they tried. Because Ruby is so poorly specified, I frequently read the interpreter source code to figure out how things are supposed to behave. CRuby is really well-written in some ways and really poorly-written in others. It's poorly written in the sense that it's a painfully slow line-by-line interpreter. It's well written in the sense that the code is very clean and well-organized: I can usually find answers in the source faster than I can find answers in the pick-axe book.


My impression is most Rails developers are not C programmers.


No, turns out the system was just running out of memory.


I hate it when facts don't agree with my theories.


This is a recurring theme with cutting-edge software. Arc is probably exercising parts of the mzscheme code that haven't been exercised before. Bugs will be fixed and things will be better.


I rewrote my senior project in Common Lisp two weeks before the due date because I was running into too many bugs in mzscheme. Then I switched from clisp to SBCL because of a bug in clisp.


Reddit switched from CMUCL to Python (threading)

Source? With the bashing Python is getting because of the GIL, it surprises me that someone would switch to Python from elsewhere for any reasons related to threading.


> Source?

Straight from PG:

"Incidentally, the last straw, I've been told, was some bug in CMUCL threads that kept making the system crash."

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/574d19d5e7...

From Reddit: http://blog.reddit.com/2005/12/on-lisp.html


Time to rewrite the site in Blub?


Paul Graham is so good, Arc is Blub for him.

Paul Graham is so good, he does just simply walk into Mordor. And then he checks into a hotel.


Paul Graham is so good, he always tips using $2.56 cheques made out by Donald Knuth.


Any sufficiently complicated developer contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Paul Graham.


Paul Graham was written in lisp that itself was written in Paul Graham.


Bjarne Stroustrup once tried to look upon Paul Graham, but was driven mad. Thus was born C++.


Al Gore didn't invent the internet, Paul Graham did. And then he invented Al Gore.


... and Al Gore was written in Blub, which was itself implemented in Arc ...


Paul Graham is so good, the parenthesis match themselves.

Paul Graham is so good, it's hard to defun him.


Paul Graham is so good, his keyboard only has three keys: 0, 1 and Return. No Backspace, because he doesn't make mistakes.


Here's Paul while hacking:

http://www.voguehost.com/ims/u/ptn/ptn/pg_hacking.gif


Three keys are redundant.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ajwatson/cat-powered.gif


Anything but the Church Numerals is below him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_numeral


Paul Graham can derive S from K


Sounds like we should have a Paul Graham Facts, like Chuck Norris.

Paul Graham's so smart that inside his brain is another brain.

Paul Graham once matched /(x+x+)+y/ in logarithmic time.


Paul Graham is a general algorithm to solve the halting program.


Paul Graham can solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.


Paul Graham's brain is a nondeterministic Turing-machine.


NP-complete problems are for sissies. Paul Graham can solve any problem in the Arithmetic Hierarchy in O(1).


Matematicians searching for P=NP or P!=NP proof should wait until Paul Graham decides which of these statements is true.


It's a little known fact that the P in P=NP actually stands for Paul Graham.


All lambda expressions terminate in logarithmic time when evaluated in Paul Graham order.


Paul Graham is so good, he yelled at the hackernews server and it fixed itself.


Paul Graham is so good, he does not recurse. He uses the y combinator - in Continuation Passing Style - with both hands tied behind his back.


What's so bad about the y combinator?


Paul graham is so good, he multiplies 850 * 77.1 and gets 65,535


Paul Graham's memory is so good that he doesn't need to have a search box on Hacker News because he can remember all the topics and urls.


Paul Graham can divide by zero.


and the answer is "Paul Graham"


Paul Graham is the current continuation.


Paul Graham can put n > m pigeons in m holes, each hole having no more than one pigeon.


Paul Graham is a default constructor. He takes no arguments.


He is also pure virtual class, which needs no overloaded virtual destructor implementations. All dispatches are written doubly, and there are no leaks, whatsoever.


Paul Graham beat Duke Nuke'em Forever on Nightmare mode using only Arc macros.


Hmm, I just thought of another.

Paul Graham named his fists: "(" and ")"


Paul Graham can write an essay entirely composed of sweeping generalizations.


After a few iterations, Rule 30 draws a picture of Paul Graham


Paul Graham only drives a car when his cdr is in the shop.

Paul Graham can be written in ten lines using macros.

Paul Graham can make NaN finally equal itself.

Paul Graham will resurrect Usenet on Judgment Day.

Paul Graham is the World Champion in Ambition.


Paul Graham is not afraid of going bankrupt. Going bankrupt is afraid of Paul Graham.


Paul Graham could get Hurd to work


Paul Graham's tears have been acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum.


They bought "Paul Graham's tears" options. Paul Graham doesn't cry.


John McCarthy sent his son Paul Graham to save the world from Blub.

(I am agnostic. I googled for this biblical verse... uncannily, it is from the book of John.)


When Paul Graham hacks, the Rocky Theme Song starts playing.

Paul Graham can find Waldo. Always.


Paul Graham partitioned the Banach-Tarski ball, reassembled it back to two identical copies of itself and then sold the other copy to Yahoo for 100 million bucks.


Paul Graham directly experiences Platonic world of ideas and finds an investor for each of them.


IN SOVIET RUSSIA, PAUL GRAHAM.... wait, what?


In Paul Graham, Soviet Russia... er... what?


Paul Graham doesn't date Jessica Alba. On a first date, she didn't know how to implement Lisp in itself.


Paul Graham can compress ANY data by at least 1 bit, including binary 1.


I have a very reliable lossy compression algorithm for you if interested. It's extremely computationally scalable as well.

I just map all values to 0.


Paul Graham when quined is Paul Graham when quined.


Paul Graham funded Kurt Godel's startup and it turned profitable.


nerds


Pretty sure he must be laughing itself out right now reading it. PG, you're a hero for many people, you know? How about you giving your own contribution to this list?

By the way, I just noticed that there is no way to recover a password if you lost it?


Paul Graham doesn't reset passwords. He decrypts them without a key.


Paul Graham is so good, he's written 735 contributions to this list but hasn't even been tempted to send them.


Paul Graham is so good, he can recurse infinitely. Twice. Just kidding. ;-)


Paul Graham is so good, he regularly comments on Hacker News.


Paul Graham is the sentence that consistently asserts itself.


Paul Graham is so brainy, he has 2 left brains, and uses 0.3% of one of those to emulate Picasso's right brain, only with a better interface.


Lisp programmers call Paul Graham a "godfather" of their "family" and for every parenthesis they use, they pay him a buck for "protection".


Lisp programmers call Paul Graham a "godfather" of their "family" and for every parenthesis they use, they pay him a buck for "protection".


There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand Paul Graham, and those who don't know binary.


There are only 3 types of mathematicans on the planet. Those who can count, and those who can not.


When Paul Graham goes to the cafeteria for lunch, he doesn't sit at a table. All the tables sit at Paul Graham.


Paul Graham is so good, he can make the tower of babel from oatmeal and fingernail clippings.


Paul Graham can find a third factor for a prime number. And more, if he feels like trying.


Paul Graham is so good he somehow managed to take the credit for this paper. http://robotics.stanford.edu/users/sahami/papers-dir/spam.pd...


Paul Graham made the world in six days, and sold it on the seventh day to become multi-millionaire.

There is no god but Paul Graham, and Paul Graham is His prophet.

Creationists are baffled by the question: "Who created Paul Graham?"


Paul Graham is so good he can count up to 32 just by counting up to 16.


Doctor Who has a real name, but Paul Graham encrypted it.


Paging tongue-ass extraction to item #60357!


Paul Graham is a CIA experiment that went very very wrong....and he has an 'arc' chip embedded in his brain


Paul Graham is so good, good was defined as (+ Paul Graham good), and implemented with tail recursion.


Except that + takes two arguments, not three--unless you've altered the definition.


Ok, here's a better one:

Chuck Norris wanted to be like Paul Graham, and tried to learn tail recursion. The best he could do was a roundhouse kick.


Aw cummon! I thought this was the ultimate cap - tail recursion? roundhouse kick? Chuck Norris? haha?


Paul Graham is always a single argument.


No, + takes any number of arguments.


Paul Graham is so good, he will skip this piece of news.

Paul Graham is so good, his DNA has an implementation of Lisp.


Paul Graham is an 8 foot tall beast-man who showers in grain alcohol and feeds his baby shrimp scampi


Paul Graham isn't lactose intolerant, he just doesn't put up with lactose's shit!


Paul Graham is so good, he can beat corporate death into a submission with his bare hands.


Paul Graham is so good, he carries a needle to burst Dotcom bubbles as he's not affected by them.


The first virus was a poorly implementation of Paul Grapham's cell.


There is an infinite number of primes, but Paul Graham is the greatest prime.


... And he is also, at the same time, the smallest prime.


Paul Graham is so good, that C++ is called PG++


And it's 0. Bignum Overflow.


Who would win? Paul Graham or Jack Bauer?


Paul Graham's face is always too pixelated for Jack Bauer's image enhancement programs.


Paul Graham's laptop was built by Cray.


Some of these are great.


he just writes (paul graham) and yahoo will buy it


Paul Graham needs no forks to dine with Philosophers.


Paul Graham doesn't need Viagra. He is NP-hard.


Paul Graham can give three young men only $6000 for a whole summer of 'work'.


.tfel ot thgir si GP


Paul Graham ith tho thmart, he hath hith own dialect


Paul_Graham(R), the well-known Registered Trademark, has finally found how not to die, and integrated and evaluater for this into his brain/organism.

So there's really hope for Arc to be finished in his life time, now!


wtf was this?


hey, Why I did got negged? Seriously, people, chill out.


tohu-wa-bohu


Paul Graham is so good, he's not falling for your WFP ass-kissing attempts.


Paul Graham was a hacker and now is a businessman.


I only expose my children to PG content.


Not just you, I've had it too over the last day or so.

Strangely, response time is still very good, so don't think it is due to server load..


I've been having the same problems with news.ycombinator.com, but ycombinator.com loads everytime.


ycombinator.com has address 65.181.149.201 news.ycombinator.com has address 67.15.104.17


Response time is not the only thing that could be affected by server load. Those infamous threading problems (deadlock, race..) also are a possibility.


I had some trouble getting on earlier today, but this is the first time I've noticed anything.


Yeah, here also. Hopefully it's not a load/scaling issue. It would be interesting to know more about the platform and hosting configuration.

It's interesting the server responds to pings, but the webserver seems to be shot when it's down.


PG has mentioned before that it's a custom web server written in Arc. It's not unusual for web server software to go down while the host machine keeps working - especially when it's experimental software written in an unfinished programming language.


Nope, it's been working for me!


yep, count me in, very annoying indeed.


DNS issues for sure folks.


DNS shouldn't cause intermittent on/off issues though, since hostname mappings are cached..




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