‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

I built the fastest PHP webserver in the world

44 points · 77 comments · EGreg

  1. mpalmer · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm confused why the copy you generated repeatedly boasts "no nginx, no Redis" as if those things don't exist independently of application servers for a reason, and as if building something that doesn't need these things (when deployed as a single instance) is particularly notable.

    "no Docker" - so what? Docker is a tool. Running containers on Linux has extremely low overhead. No idea what this is about.

    You didn't spend the effort to decorate the slop with your rationale for these choices, so I see no evidence that you built any of this.

    1. tobz1000 · · focus · HN ↗
      One of the biggest shortcomings I often see with LLM-produced content, following a planning conversation, is that they misunderstand the breadth of the domain for which a detail is relevant or interesting.

      So if it fixes a bug where function was accidentally deleting a file, it will update the function's documentation with "does not delete any important files", as if that's a key feature and not just one of a million things it should not do.

      The same pattern repeats when an LLM is left to generate its own copy after a brainstorming and architecting session. It has no concept of what's important to the end-user.

      1. ramon156 · · focus · HN ↗
        The only LLM that does this wel (in my opinion) is gemini. if i ask claude to fix comments, it very clearly fails in doing so. Gemini actually seems to understand the scope of a task
        1. iinnPP · · focus · HN ↗
          In the specific context though, it is relevant. So the aside is more closely related to the behavior being outlined.
        2. LoganDark · · focus · HN ↗
          Really wish I could use Gemini without linking it to my personal Google account.
      2. DenisM · · focus · HN ↗
        I observed the same, and generalized it as inability to recognize salience and more broadly apply discretion.

        In turn it makes me wonder how do humans do those things? Perhaps it is our human job to apply discretion going forward.

      3. EGreg · · focus · HN ↗
        I honestly consider it lazy pattern-matching commenting slop if people don’t look at the actual software being described, don’t run it, don’t even open the sections of the webpage that describe how it works.

        I understand why… people are inundated with more content than ever. Even if it is a huge breakthrough, most won’t care and will just keep posting in a TL;DR way.

        I hoped that many on HN would actually take this for a spin. It’s free and MIT-licensed. And if you serve any websites in PHP (as 70% of all websites are), you owe it to yourself to save money and serve more users on one machine. I mean, seriously, this lets you build a PHP app that serves 40,000 users on a $5/month machine. You’d raise your Series A before you need another machine LOL

        1. mpalmer · · focus · HN ↗
          I admit I did not expect an accusation of laziness.

          Your README makes it harder to understand why your project is unique, why the things it says are good are actually good. It's inscrutable LLM marketing-speak that suggests you had very little involvement in the content.

          Do you understand why that matters to someone deciding whether to run something you vibe coded?

          I was hoping you might address the criticism rather than get defensive. It seems more likely that you are unwilling to defend the content you published.

          1. EGreg · · focus · HN ↗
            If I was unwilling to defend it, why did I sit for 30 mins on an iPhone and personally type all the substantive replies to toplevel comments in this thread?
            1. bbg2401 · · focus · HN ↗
              Your replies are directly from an LLM too.

              Amongst other tells, “it’s free and MIT” stated as a noteworthy feature gives strong “how do you do, fellow kids” vibes.

              You’ve mentioned the mass of sloppy content you know we’re drowning in. Throwing more slop our way isn’t likely to help things.

              Take the ideas from your generated work so far and put your own intellect to work on it. Find someone to bounce ideas off. You might find it fun, and it might provide some human interest worthy of a new HN post in future.

              1. EGreg · · focus · HN ↗
                I literally wrote them on an iPhone myself.

                So I now suspect your entire LLM-dar lol

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.