Stack Exchange Website Profiler Now Open Source 56
ScuttleMonkey writes "Joel Spolsky sent out smoke signals this morning about the recent release of the Stack Exchange Website Profiler as open source. Sam Saffron expounds on why this profiler is perhaps 'best and most comprehensive production web page profiler out there for any web platform.' The project is available via Google Code or NuGet."
.NET production profiler (Score:5, Informative)
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Awesome, open source code that requires you to use a closed source system to run it. That always makes me laugh.
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Aren't we inquisitive? Not a real laugh, I just find the concept quite funny. It seems mighty absurd.
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I always keep my laughing closed, so that I can maximize the profitability of it.
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I bet your open source software runs on a "closed source" CPU.
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You know what makes me laugh? People who spout the benefits of open source, but then laugh when people try to improve a closed system by making parts of it open source.
Purists make the worst evangelists.
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A system closed in some key parts is closed, no matter how many layers of FOSS depend on it. Wanna build up on a closed system? It's a bet, pray that open alternatives come indirectly to your rescue by simply being there.
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I wonder, when RMS was writing the GNU tools, how did he do it without open source tools...
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with butterflies [xkcd.com] ...duh!
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He used proprietary software to get the GNU project up and running. First thing he wrote was an editor, then a compiler using that editor, then tools using that compiler and editor, then more tools using the existing tools, compiler, editor, etc.
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With a proprietary compiler, likely. The difference between building a toolchain and in perspective an OS for an eventually self hosted environment vs. building stuff using the .net framework, especially when targeting windows, should have been obvious to a low ID slashdotter.
Open hardware would be better, ditto for open firmware, and free compilers are here already. But as long as their specification are correct / no backdoors, showstopping bugs, and as long as I am the owner of the product they issue (whi
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"The difference between building a toolchain and in perspective an OS for an eventually self hosted environment vs. building stuff using the .net framework, especially when targeting windows, should have been obvious to a low ID slashdotter."
That is obvious to me. The point I was making is that open source software didn't come out of nowhere. It had to be jump started by something.
Re:.NET production profiler (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome, open source code that requires you to use a closed source system to run it. That always makes me laugh.
Are you running on pure open hardware? is all the microcode on all your firmware devices open source?
You have a piece of software that can be integrated in a .NET web app to gain more visibility into how the app functions. Having that available is a good thing if you write .NET code. Having the source code available is a potentially better thing for you (I say potentially because I'm speaking of immediate and direct utility). The fact that .NET itself is not open source, and that windows itself is not open source does not nullify the utility of access to the source code for this profiler.
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You (and the blog you linked to) seem to have a different definition of open source then most of us...
From your link:
Reference License
The .NET Framework source is being released under a read-only reference license.
*emphasis mine
And as for Mono, my understanding is that they specifically avoided touching the reference code so the that Mono is considered a reversed engineered product and that no developers were tainted by being given access to the MS code.
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Yeah, right. Except that the bits that aren't - like the point release which anyone who installs updates is running - aren't even available read-only.
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The .NET Framework source is being released under a read-only reference license....If the software you are developing is for Windows platforms, you can look at the code, even if that software has "the same or substantially the same features or functionality" as the .NET Framework.
It's open source but not FOSS, and not granting any freedom from software patents, a safety which cannot be granted anyway, until obvious stuff can be patented.
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You keep referring to that link. I don't think is says what you think it says.
(with apologies to Inigo Montoya)
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That does not say what you claim it says. .NET is pantent encumbered and the way anyone uses it in the real world includes lots of closed source stuff.
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Yeah, it's similar very similar to Linux. Running an open source system on closed source hardware. That always makes me laugh.
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ASP.NET MVC is open source, and so is Mono.
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Real only license, patent encumbered and in the real world people include lots of closed source stuff when using it.
It is open only in the loosest sense. Mono is aptly named after a disease.
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Real only license,
I'm not sure what a "Real only license" is, so I assume you meant to write "read-only".
Even then it doesn't make any sense to me, because Mono is GPL and LGPL, and ASP.NET MVC is under Ms-PL; the latter is considered a "free software license" by FSF (it's effectively BSDL + patent clause). Neither are "read-only" in any meaningful sense.
in the real world people include lots of closed source stuff when using it.
In real world, most people who use Linux also use proprietary closed-source NVidia graphics drivers. That's because, in real world, most people are pragmatists and not fanat
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Sadly Joel Sprotsky the ex-Microsoftie still has a lot of work to do: choosing .NET and Windows server (!) was probably far from the smartest idea. All the biggest websites (eBay, Amazon, GMail, Google, Wikipedia, etc.) do NOT run on Windows servers for a reason.
Perhaps you should start by looking at how StackOverflow actually does it since a majority of their servers *aren't* Windows based. http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/3/3/stack-overflow-architecture-update-now-at-95-million-page-vi.html [highscalability.com]
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It seems they use Linux to cover it up when Windows dies with HAProxy.
Everything still boils down to IIS, .NET and MS SQL.
any web platform? (Score:5, Informative)
'best and most comprehensive production web page profiler out there for any web platform.'
That's a little bit misleading. This project is basically instrumentation that you add to an asp.net 4.0 webapp. It does not seem to be usable by any other kind of webapp. It doesn't even look like it would be easy to port to the other major platforms.
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Is your sig a quote from something or original? I kinda like it.
It's a line from Raising Arizona.
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I also have to take issue with the blog author's responses to comments related to this profiler. About seven comments down he writes:
That's probably one of the most ludicrous things I've seen. Ideas are not hard. They're easy. Want some examples?
I have an idea: Let's go to the moon.
I have an idea: Let's go to Mars.
I have an idea: Let's come up with clean, plentiful energy.
I realize I'm nitpicking, but the way he should have written it is:
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Architecture is hard. Or more correctly, choosing the "correct" architecture is hard. If you pick the architecture well, implementation may be time consuming but hopefully isn't "hard."
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Also a good point.
I suppose one of the problems with nitpicking is that it is exceedingly easy to blur the lines between one facet of the development process and another. From an extremely high level view, I would probably argue that ideas live on one end of the spectrum and coding, implementation, and--as you suggested--architecture live on the other.
But, since you replied, I would assume that you understood the gist of my point which was that ideas are not the hard part by any stretch of the imagination.
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Yeah for sure. I should have said that you made good points up front. I was just trying to contribute, but there is so much stupid sniping on /. that it doesn't go without saying!
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Yeah, definitely. I appreciate your additions (and deserved corrections) to my complaints about the article's author and his comments. I owe you an apology for my somewhat defensive reply for reasons you undoubtedly understand. In fact, you pointed it out! There's really no excuse for my defensive behavior.
Along those lines, I appr
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Poor taste when GNU/Linux copied UNIX? (Score:1)
Wow, Shapado looks exactly StackExchange. I'm assuming that's legal and all (didn't check the licenses), but it sure is in poor taste.
Wow, GNU/Linux looks exactly like UNIX. I'm assuming that's legal and all (didn't check the licenses), but it sure is in poor taste.
Wow, Quattro Pro looks exactly like 1-2-3. I'm sure this one is legal (even checked the US Supreme Court decision [wikipedia.org]), but it sure is in poor taste.
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tepples may have a history of sarcastic responses, and there are times when I often disagree with what he has to post, but he gets his point across.
In this case, I tend to agree with his sarcasm. The fact that you aren't appreciative of it is awful telling--never mind that you feel GNU/Linux being a copy of UNIX to be (initially) in poor taste.
Yes, 1-to-1 knockoffs are generally bad, generally in poor taste, and generally the result of a) lack of skill and/or creativity, 2) familiarity, or 3) so great an in
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I have him friended because I find his posts pretty entertaining (I use the friend system on /. as a glorified "hey, I like this person's posts" filter), and perhaps I would have been better off classifying his comment history as "snarky" more than sarcastic. Either way, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it even if I completely disagree with the point he's making, but I think that's largely because a lot of people are unnecessarily touchy. :)
I'm in love! (Score:1)
Many of the commenters seem pretty cranky, but I am very excited by this tool, it's exactly what I need and very nicely put together. I'll certainly be weaving it into my project. It shows the same dense but tight information presentation, use of AJAX techniques, and clean, modern web coding techniques that makes Stack Overflow so popular in the first place.
Stock Exchange? (Score:1)
Too bad I read the title as "Stock Exchange Website Profiler" and thought that someone had open sourced years of mining and forecasting stock information for the public to collaborate on.
Back on topic, this is quite interesting as well.