Re: [Social-discuss] Which of four projects are we doing?

[Matt Lee]

On 03/27/2010 09:08 AM, Carlo von Loesch wrote:

> No Matt, I have to disagree with this impossible design goal.
> If we stay in PHP playground land without a proper backend protocol
> we will only be able to make yet another web-based social engine
> without a scalable real-time link to the rest of the world.

Please don't be disparaging to PHP.

> A social network in a Facebook style generates events a go-go.
> Each time a user adds a comment somewhere, each time a user likes
> something, writes an update, joins a group or adds a friend.
> Every time a notice needs to be distributed to all peers.
> This is a one-to-many operation that hasn't got a ghost of a chance
> of scaling if implemented as a round-robin series of HTTP calls.

How many friends does the average Facebook user have? Even it's its
10,000 -- I can't see why if I publish a status update, 10,000 other
servers couldn't access a URI, similar to an RSS feed, and get the info.

Even on the cheapest and nastiest of web hosting.

> Is there some magic trick I am not familiar with that allows us to do
> real protocols on persistent TCP connections on so-called "commodity
> webhosting" or should we rather create such a profoundly important
> technology that will influence "commodity webhosting" in such a way
> that it will become common to support gnu social?

We should focus on making something simple, which publishes its own
updates in a way that other servers request them in a timely manner,
rather than the individual server pushing them out.

And we should do that in the lower common denominator possible -- PHP
with a RDBMS.

Only then will the average computer user be able to quickly set up or
obtain/purchase GNU social service from a willing provider.

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