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- -I am 12 and what is this
- -Blërg is a microblogging platform. Or maybe a miniblogging - platform. Blërg is not sure. Blërg is a lot like Twitter, but aims to fix some of its - idiosyncracies. Blërg does not want to be a full blogging platform - like Wordpress or Livejournal. Blërg is also an open source tagged text database engine written in C - that does the back-end work. Blërg's author finds it entertaining to - anthropomorphize Blërg in the third person.
- -But what's wrong with Twitter?
- -I'M GLAD YOU ASKED. There are two aspects of Twitter that just bug - me as an engineer:
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- Ruby on Rails - Using rails to prototype a system is - fine — scaling up to a million hits a day with it is just a bad - idea. As the service grew, I'm sure it cost them a lot more time than - it saved. -
- 140 characters is not enough - I routinely write - sentences longer than 140 characters, so I can't even begin to imagine - making a point in such a small space. This textual confinement has - led to the rise of URL shorteners, which are breaking the internet. -
Blërg solves these problems by applying absurd reactionary - engineering. Blërg's database backend is a custom C program that - handles requests over HTTP and stores data in a very small and - efficient indexed log-structured database. The frontend is done - entirely in client-side Javascript. A single post can be up to 65535 - bytes in length.
- -Which is not to say that I believe writing your service in C is the - solution to all your problems. Clearly, this approach has just as - many hairy problems that will bite you in the ass sooner or later. - The best way, as with most things, lies somewhere in the middle of - high-level abstraction and ZOMGHARDCORE OPTIMIZATION.
- -Is this a joke?
- -Yes. No. Maybe. Blërg is an exercise in constructive satire — a - fully functional service created in a fit of hubris to poke fun at Twitter's - engineering. It's just for fun, but no one is going to keep you from using - it seriously. :]
- -Tell me more about this database engine.
- -Here, take a look at the design docs.
- -I'm a social media whore and I want to share links!
- -I've created a bookmarklet just for you: Blërg it!
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