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Thanks, Andrew.
We’re using MySQL. I’m no expert, but I think that using another database could speed it up another notch.
My knowledge of databases is at least two orders of magnitude below yours, but I’d like to share some reason: recently in a preparation for a future decision I read many comparisons of free and semi-free database platforms and it seems there is no clearly better rival which is nearly that much supported and which is highly scalable, what is often quoted of MySQL. My layman understanding is that we want to have scalable, free and expected to be long supported platform. (I know you know all of this, I do not doubt that in short term something else can technically surpass the performance, but with other factors in long term we do not gain much by changing to some less known database, it seems; though I do understand that much of the delay is due various database tasks; other kinds of tweaking and optimization which you suggested seem to me more significant).
FWIW, one unique thing iTex does which I really like, and which I even kind of wish ordinary LaTeX would do, is to interpret multi-character strings as single identifiers, e.g. $Set$ produces and not . This is occasionally confusing for newcomers who have to learn to separate variables with spaces when they want to be multiplying them, but once you’re used to it, it’s extremely convenient. This is especially true because (1) category theorists and type theorists are, I think, more inclined than most mathematicians to use multicharacter names, and (2) multicharacter names are nice on a large wiki project for things that are vaguely in the “global namespace”.
“You’re doing it all wrong. You should be doing ABC.”.
Andrew, you are not doing anything wrong, and nobody says this. You do an awesome job. Pointing out the evident problems of the nLab installation is not a criticism of your person or of your achievements. Without you, the nLab would not have survived a year, without you nothing here would work.
Naming the problems of the nLab software is not criticism of you, of your capabilities and achievements.
Now you make me sound like a petulant kid! I don’t mean to come across that way at all.
I’m well aware of the problems with the nLab setup. I don’t need them pointing out again. I would like someone to help find solutions, but changing from instiki to gitit is not going to be one of them.
The difficulty I face is that there are lots of parameters that can be changed and fine-tuned to improve things. But I don’t know what metrics to use in order to see which are the most effective. So that would be the most practical offer of help.
I also strongly suspect that we’ve out-grown our VPS and need to go up a level. But again, it’s silly to simply throw money at the problem without being sure that that will help.
Hi Andrew, somehow I don’t get the feeling that fixing the nLab is a matter of fine-tuning. My impression is that you and Jacques have fine-tuned it considerably since when we started, and the result is indeed now a good bit better than it was at the beginning. But to fix things genuinely it seems some more drastic measure is needed, such as maybe rewriting some core chunk of instiki code or else finding another engine.
It’s true that the nLab is a bit bigger than the average private wiki installation, but it seems to me that it is still just about displaying a little bit of text. In an age where handheld machines run photo-realistic real time ego-shooters it seems to me to be unreasonable that a program whose sole functionality is to save and display a few bytes of text should have any noticable trouble with that. That it does have major such problems must be an intrinsic problem somewhere at the kernel of the whole setup, not something one can fine tune away at the end. At least that’s my lay impression, you will set me straight, please.
Again, this is not remotely a criticism of what you do and have done. This is not your fault. I suppose if it is somebody’s fault then it is my fault. Back when I initiated the nLab, I should have first looked around to see which options for wikis there are, and which experience people had with them. Only later did I look around a bit and noticed for instance that Instiki is advertized (http://instiki.rubyforge.org) as being the Wiki that is easy to install. That seems to explain neatly all our experience: somebody probably wrote a quick piece of code to get a wiki easy to install.
nLab seems to be down again.
it’s down, but it seems that the whole server is, for I cannot log into it
hm, I still can’t reach it from my computer. But now I see that I can reach it on my phone! Must be a problem on my side then, strange.
[ okay, so I guess this was a false alarm, restarting my computer did help. So strange, before i could reach any website, just not the nLab. Weird. ]
Urs, as soon as I saw your message 407 (about 40 minutes after you posted it) I tried and the Lab was there, although at that time of night here connection speeds are slow.
Is the Lab down? (Edit : It is back now, but terribly slow.)
Yes, it was down a few minutes back. I have restarted it and after a little wake-up period, now it seems okay.
I have been restarting further, but it keeps going down these days. (Probably new software updates?)
Is the Lab down?
Good morning.
I have now restarted the server. Now it’s back.
Thanks.
Is the lab down? ( Some minutes later, it is now alright it seems.)
Extremely slow now, edits won't save.
It's better now.
The nLab (and Azimuth Wiki) went down around 7:45 am GMT Wednesday 8 July 2014.
I seem to have lost the stuff I used to log in and try to restart things.
I’ve restarted the server.
Thanks!
I’m getting “504 Gateway Time-out” trying to access the lab right now.
I’m looking into it. You can use ncatlab.org:8080 for the moment.
I don’t really understand what happened, but it’s working again now.
thanks!
Hi, I’m getting a “504 Gateway Time-out” lab.
06.30 UK time: It seems still to be down.
Back up now.
Thanks, Adeel.
The all pages tab give a 504 TIme-out.
I’m getting the effect that Bas #431 reported right now.
Thanks. This is a known issue. I had actually fixed it at some point but it reverted somehow. I will try to fix it again as soon as possible.
I am getting a 502 Bad Gateway message and cannot connect. Thoughts on the problem would be good! (This is on all of Firefox, Safari and Chrome.)
For me too.
Back up now.
was in the middle of editing, seems the nlab has been down for about half an hour or so.
Re # 436 noticed nothing untoward, telling from a cursory test.
The only strange thing (to me) was that when I clicked your message in the nForum, I had to manually nagivate to message 436, because I was initially shown the opening post.
that is strange, for some reason I can access the nlab from lynx, but not from chrome, firefox, or safari.
strike that, I can access the nlab from firefox (and lynx), but not chrome or safari
and now safari works as well (but still no chrome). Unless someone else noticed anything, I’ll assume this is just something strange going on on my end. [In the meantime, let me describe my edits…]
I have no problem with Firefox, Safari and Chrome.