[byroot]

> Rails was initially too slow for GitHub, so they forked it, didn't use "Rails" for a while

That's a weird way of framing it.

They stuck with a fork of Rails 2.3 for a long time because the upgrade was deemed too costly, not because their fork was faster.

In the end their performance patches were either outdated or contributed upstream, and they are now on Rails main branch.

And while it was a fork, it was still largely "Rails".

[stevebmark]

Please listen to the Github engineers in the provided links.

> We forked rails and _practically wrote our own._ We fought against the framework. We deviated from the framework, and we even wondered if rails was right for us at all.

and

> Rails 3 was found to be five times slower than Rails 2

[byroot]

> Please listen to the GitHub engineers

I regularly talk with engineers that worked on that project at GitHub, some are now my coworkers. I know more about this effort than what was said publicly.

> Rails 3 was found to be five times slower than Rails 2

This is a bogus claim. It might have been 5 times slower on some pathological cases, it absolutely wasn't 5 times slower overall.

[stevebmark]

The presentation and "bogus claim" is from a principle Github engineer and core Rails team member. I will trust them rather than anonymous anecdotes.

[byroot]

I'm a Rails core member too, and Eileen is my colleague...

You are interpreting both links you gave in terrible ways.

[stevebmark]

I’m quoting, not interpreting. What am I missing?

It sounds like you’re seeing the pain GitHub suffered through rose colored glasses. The talks about GitHub Rails upgrades say it took years and caused burnout.

[byroot]

You are quoting out of context, losing the meaning of the quotes.

The conclusion of Eileen's talk is that by not following with upgrade and essentially forking Rails 2.3 they painted themselves in a corner. They took short term gains, and produced longs term losses. It's a self induced problem.

In the end they upgraded and are now tracking the main branch, so the problem wasn't Rails.