Why HN was slow and how Rtm fixed it

Reverse-proxying via nginx would solve this problem and more: the arbitrary 30 second limit on form submission (hotspots sometimes are slow...), nginx could handle rate limiting & logging instead of srv.arc, etc. The Arc codebase would btw be smaller and cleaner (no policy/sanitization code, etc.).

Serving static content via Apache was a first step ;-)

Don't reinvent the wheel!

Did you just tell people running a company that reinvented funding with their custom written news site written in their own programming language with a custom web server that they shouldn't re-invent the wheel?

They think they can build a better wheel. They seem to like doing it and have a habit of it. There's nothing wrong with that.

Unless they built their server with nand gates, I don't see running nginx reverse proxy to be incoherent with their philosophy.

Right, they only re-invent wheels when they feel they can make a better one. I don't think they feel they can go through the effort of fabricating a better chip. Though I wouldn't put it past rtm to try.

The philosophy "Don't reinvent the wheel" however, is definitely inconsistent with their philosophy. They will reinvent the wheel whenever they feel they can make a better one. Just because they haven't reinvented every wheel does not mean "don't reinvent the wheel" applies to this group.

They chose to create the best solution they think they can. They don't seem to care whether or not that involves reinventing wheels. The original argument that they should seems pretty silly.

I think he means that the nginx reverse proxy is just a part of the infrastructure, like the server, OS, MzScheme etc they use.

Totally. "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you first need to recreate the Universe" -- Sagan.