[PATCH] Proof-of-concept of a dual PHP–Python stack

[Frédéric Mangano-Tarumi]

Lukas Fleischer [2020-03-15 08:25:31 -0400]
> Being overloaded is a relative term. Yes, the AUR servers are often
> under heavy load, with millions of requests every day.

To get more concrete: are the AUR servers sometimes at 100% CPU
capacity, or do they hardly ever reach the point of saturation? In other
words, can we afford a 1% slowdown? What about 10%?

> It might make sense to only switch over once the port has been
> completed.

I strongly recommend against that.

First, not deploying the Python backend implies we keep developing the
PHP stack too, which in turn means we either need to stop developing
new features, or develop them twice.

Second, deploying a wholly different codebase at once is dreadful for an
actively used website. All the bugs introduced by the rewrite would pop
up simultaneously. This is all the more risky if we decide to adjust
features as we rewrite them. Debugging may also become harder if we
can’t narrow down the commits based on the date the bug appeared. By the
way, I think we should for that reason accelerate the release cycle when
we start porting code.

> Your proposal makes the rewrite relatively easy, has low overhead and at
> least one other person actively working on the rewrite (I briefly
> discussed it with Filipe) likes it. Unless somebody else wants to
> suggest an alternative approach here, I think we're good to go!

All right!