Sublinks Aims to Be a Drop-In Replacement for Lemmy
Sublinks Aims to Be a Drop-In Replacement for Lemmy
The Threadiverse is growing again, this time offering an effort to build a new Lemmy replacement from scratch, with API compatibility.
Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy's Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.
Too bad it's java
Browsing the code makes me angry at how bloated Java projects are:
package com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.repositories; import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.dto.Community; import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.models.CommunitySearchCriteria; import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.dto.Post; import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.models.PostSearchCriteria; import org.springframework.data.domain.Page; import org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable; import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository; import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.Query; import org.springframework.data.repository.query.Param; import java.util.List; public interface CommunitySearchRepository { List allCommunitiesBySearchCriteria(CommunitySearchCriteria communitySearchCriteria); }Every file is 8 directories deep, has 20 imports, and one SQL statement embedded in a string literal. 😭
Yup. Welcome to the world of Java where such things are not only silly but encouraged.
And what's bad about that? As in, how is the verbosity a negative thing exactly? More so because virtually any tool can be configured to default-collapse these things if for your specific workflow you don't require the information.
At the same time, since everything is verbose, you can get very explicit information if you need it.
There's nothing wrong with java
There is nothing inherently wrong with Java I would speculate, but it can be a royal pain in the ass to manage if you just need one application to work.
I know the basics of the language, but from what I have seen managing it, I don't like it. Just from being in security, I constantly hit barriers with devs because of versioning issues. There is always some ancient app running on a version of Java that can't be updated, for whatever reason. Version management is always a pain, but with Java? Goddamn.
I admit ignorance about the details of Java and how awesome it is for job security. There is no way in hell I could even debate anyone who has watched a single video on YouTube about Java. However, from what I have seen, it either works great or it fails explosively with billions of randomly allocated threads attempting to suck memory from every other server within 50 miles.
If it's awesome to code with, cool. I am just a little salty from my experiences, as you can tell.
Oh yes there is
Who cares? If it works, it works.
The biggest strength of Java is that many programmers has years or even decades of experience in it.
Lol how about one written in NodeJS? 😆
Brainfuck would be my choice if we are making things harder for ourselves.
I bet there are forks already. NodeJS is quite popular really.
I have a hard time believing that rewriting the backend from scratch would be faster than getting PRs approved on the main project.
Forks like this with one guy who "knows best" usually die a slow quiet death as they get left behind by the main project.
I think how quickly this project has gotten to near feature parity is a testament to how slow Lemmy development has been. Think about scaled sort (a feature that has been hotly requested since the migration) and how long that took to get merged in. A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.
Depends on amount of technical debt really. Sometimes rewrite is the only way. But in general fixing things can be done. It's just matter of time, focus and effort.
Why Java though ? Like really ? It's... Better than any other compiled language ?
Because modern Java is an OK language with a great ecosystem to quickly build web backends. And there are lots of java devs which means more potential contributors.
It's probably got the best library/tooling ecosystem of any language out there. Certainly dwarfs Rust in that regard. Easier to find devs. Reasonably efficient thou not as much as Rust and typically less memory efficient. It's a perfectly good suggestion for a project like Lemmy. I'd reach for Java or Go before Rust for a project like this but you know, that's just me.
What missing features are so important that you decide to recreate the entire backend of Lemmy because you think the devs aren't fast enough?
Java instead of Rust is going to be a big thing for a lot of people who would like to contribute in their spare time. Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.
Back during the migration surge a few months ago, you commonly saw a LOT of comments from folks saying they would love to help eat away at the project’s backlog, but they just didn’t have the time or energy to learn Rust at the moment.
Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.
Sure, twenty-five years ago, when Sun was pushing their language hard into colleges everywhere.
Now? Sun Microsystems doesn't even exist, and everybody hates the JVM in an ecosystem where VMWare, Docker, and Kubernetes do the whole "virtual machine" model much better.
Lemmy doesn't have to have missing features for someone to want to write their own implementation. And in a decentralized system you want multiple implementations to exist. This is a good thing
It seems to be more language focused than hard to PR against the main repo.
Java is much more widely known than Rust, which means a much larger pool of developers. I never contributed to the original Lemmy server because I couldn’t wrap my head around a full production scale rust project. I’ll very likely contribute to this because I work with production Java code daily. Im sure I’m not the only other dev who has run into this.
Also maybe there’s just too many disagreements with the Lemmy owners, who are a bit extreme for a lot of people.
Trust and Safety tooling, apparently.
Good mod tools
This looks like the major driver of the project, IMO. The Sublinks roadmap is full of feature ideas geared toward better moderation, both at the community and instance level.
Java backend? What year is it?
2024, Java is still the 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%
Every year since Java existed
A year in which the number of Java developers and ecosystem dwarfs that of Rust.
Java is still a strong language.
I think the people who say this and think Rust is the second coming of Jesus, just don't code. You choose the right language that's needed for the job. Server stuff like this is Java's bread and butter. As amazing as Rust is, it has proven to not be a great choice for Lemmy's development.
I’m curious why you say Rust “ has proven “ to not be a great choice. There is a lack of Rust programmers, but its been the fastest growing community on GitHub for multiple years now, and has proven to be viable at all level of the stack.
Full disclaimer: I code and work in Rust daily on the backend and frontend.
Having a frontend rewrite seemed more critical than trying reimplementing the backend in a different language.
Remember, Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs, and this is essentially promising to make something in months that has a fully compatible backend to support all the third party apps, while adding features on top of what Lemmy has, and with a better front end with better mod tools to boot, with a complete rewrite of everything.
The scope of this project has planned for is already unviable. Suppose that Sublinks does reach feature parity to the current version of Lemmy, congratulations, the backend or mod tools is not something a regular user is going to notice or care about at all, all they will know is that suddenly, there are weird bugs that wasn't there before, and that causes frustration.
And this project is going to get more developer traction because... Java?
I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm very sceptical about the success of Sublinks, because it look like a project that was started out of tech arrogance to prove a point than out of a real need, I don't work in tech, but the general trajectory of these kind of projects is that "enthusiasm from frustration" can only take you so far before the annoyance of dealing with mundane problems piles up, and the project fizzles out and ends with a whimper.
I have higher hopes. Java is three times more developers than Rust (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/), and you can see in this thread a number of people saying they could contribute as they know Java and not Rust.
Let's hope for the best.
Just peeking at the source code and it all looks like pretty standard stuff. Looks just like apps I've worked on at several jobs.
Is it sexy? No. But a lot of people have experience with this and could help develop.
Only time will tell if this project pays off though
I'm pretty sure Nutomic was a Java dev before starting work on Lemmy and learning Rust from scratch. That by itself should already speak volumes.
One-Up projects like this rarely ever turn out well, that's from my own experiences. Even though this isn't a popular view, I still think I'm right on this one, we can circle back in say, 6 months, to see if my predictions are right.
Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs
Lemmy had 4 years to accrue technical debt and make foot-guns first-class features. A rewrite is probably exactly what it needs.
There are some projects that start because of "tech arrogance" as you describe the current situation. MariaDB, Git, LibreOffice are some of the most famous ones, but I'm sure there are more.
But does it have blockchain AI integration?
an alternative Java-based backend
kill it with fire
Next step, is to remake Lemmy in JavaScript. Pure JavaScript, no typescript, only express, nothing else
rewrite it in perl with a flat file database.
an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy’s Rust-based one
Going from a modern well-designed language to an old-and-busted, kitschy, memory-hogging, bloated language. This is literally a step backwards.
Rust, Go... hell, even Ruby-on-Rails or whatever Python is offering nowadays would be a better choice.
Modern Java isn't that bad, and with new developments like the graalvm and cloud native builds, or what they are called, the footprint of a modern Java app can be comparable to an golang app.
Modern Java kinda has the same image problem as modern PHP. Not saying is all great, but it sure has seen quite the improvements in the last years
I'm a long time Java developer who was recently moved to a project written in Go. All I can say is: What. The. Fuck. I swear, the people who designed the syntax must have been trying to make every wrong decision possible on purpose as a joke. The only think I can think of is that they only made design decisions on the syntax while high on shrooms or something.
Like, why in the actual fuck does the capitalization of a function change the scope?????? Who thought that was a good idea? It's not intuitive AT ALL. Just have a public/private keyword.
Nah, Java is alright. All the old complicated "enterprise" community and frameworks gave it a bad reputation. It was designed to be an easier, less bloated C++ (in terms of features/programming paradigms). It's also executed fairly efficiently. Last time I checked, the same program written in C would typically take 2x the time to complete in Java; whereas it would take 200x the time to complete in Python. Here's some recent benchmarks: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/python3-java.html
I haven't had a chance to try Rust yet, but want to. Interestingly, Rust scores poorly on source-code complexity: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/how-programs-are-measured.html#source-code
Based on all the other threads and cross posts it just seems like this software is being created because Jason Grim doesn't like the lemmy devs or their politics. I guess that's as good of a reason to fork as any. I'm happy with the way lemmy is and how its being created so I have been doing monthly donations to them for its development.
It’s not a fork though. It’s a complete rewrite in another programming language. That’s way more effort than a petty project.
The truth is, this might succeed based on developer reach. I love Rust, but I know it won’t have the reach (yet) that Java can, and more developers mean faster progress.
In the end, between this, Lemmy or another project which may be a fork of either, the success will be due to efforts of everyone involve at every stage. This wouldn’t exist without Lemmy, and Lemmy wouldn’t exist with ActivityPub.
I didn't know Lemmy was written in Rust.
Lemmy is how I learned about Rust.
This actually makes me want to contribute to lemmy.
a missed opportunity to name it Jemmy
I'm just here for the joke
EDIT: sentence structure
I like this, I will contribute to this, I think a lot of Java haters in this thread fail to realize just how massive Java is compared to everything else.
Rust might be the latest, hottest, bestest Java killer out there and it might be a completely superior language to Java, doesn't matter, it's dwarfed in terms of how many people actually use it for real projects, projects that should run for years and years. Even if Rust is the true Java killer, it's gonna take a good few more years for it to kill java, measured in decades, there is just way too many projects and critical stuff out there that is running on Java, that means lots of jobs out there for java, still and still more.
This means there are a lot of senior Java programmers out there with lots of years of experience to contribute to this project.
Plus Lemmy itself having alternatives and choices is just a good thing.
Agreed. I mean COBOL is still a thing, and that's a language that's been dead for 30+ years.
I am not a fan of Java. However, I think that you are 100% correct. This is a potentially very useful stack to have available and I hope that the two projects track together well.
This project has potential for high velocity development that Lemmy will never be able to match, purely because of the languages. Rust is, factually, slower to develop in than Java, even for experienced devs. Add to that the greater population that is comfortable with Java, and you have a recipe for really pushing interesting things and innovating quickly. Possibly establishing a relationship somewhat like Debian Sid to Debian Stable. It could also be interesting to have some low-level, Rust modules that are shared between the two when Lemmy gets to 1.0 (API stability), if there is something that is more optimally implemented in Rust but that would introduce more coupling.
Thank you for your perspective
Rust is as much of a Java killer as C++ is. You could say Rust is the C++ killer, but I really don't see how Rust would be that comparable to Java, which operates at a higher level instead of memory and pointer management. IMO, Kotlin is the Java killer.
I've been hearing a lot of good things for a while. Lookin forward to it.
I'm hearing hype from the people making it.... dunno why anyone else would have anything positive or negative to say yet
Forget the backend! I just want the frontend not to crap itself whenever it can't fetch the site icon!
A new front-end is coming too. We need a new front-end to support all the new features we’re adding.
Have you tried any of the web client alternatives ("Web" filter): https://lemmyapps.netlify.app/ ?
Mine had accumulated 420MB of cookie data the other day. Had to clear it before I could log in. I thought the instance was dead.
No kidding. I'm an Ops guy and I've hosted hundreds of web applications professionally and for fun over the years but Lemmy has been one of the more frustrating and brittle experiences I've had.
I've figured out a few of the quirks by now but I definitely spent a whole afternoon troubleshooting why the front end wouldn't load at all only to discover the real issue was with Pict-rs.
I guess my username won't make sense anymore. But it sounds so good that it doesn't need to make sense.
That's okay, no one thinks my username makes sense when it absolutely does.
Idk why that reminded me of a very old Minecraft release where there was a bug where squids can actually fly.
Idk if I misremembered that or if it was an actually real thing.
So while there's plenty of talk in here (even from the core lemmy devs) about how much it makes sense and how much value there is in starting a new project with a different tech stack that includes Java, compared to simply contributing back to the current project that has momentum ... and while that's an interesting and important conversation ...
Realistically, developers will make what they want to with what they want to (to a fault IMO, especially within the broader mission of the fediverse, but that's besides the point). This project will happen, people will contribute and it may succeed.
So, to focus on the positives and what can be made good about this ...
It's great that there's some sort of settling on a standard here and trying to be a "drop in replacement". Continued commitments to consistency and interoperability would be awesome. While collaboration may be naturally limited, there'd still definitely be scope for it ...
- ideas and designs, obviously
- Database management and optimisation, which is likely a big one.
- On that ... AFAICT, SL is using MySQL? Can't help but wonder (without knowing the technical justifications here) whether it would make much more sense to stick with the same DB unless there's a good reason for divergence.
- Front ends and the API, another big one but one where the two projects could conceivably work together.
I'm likely being very naive here, but I can see both projects coming under a single umbrella or compact which provide different backends and maybe DB setups or schemas but otherwise share a good amount in design and mission.
However unlikely that is ... trying not to fragment the fediverse too much would be awesome and its pleasant to see some dedication here to that end.
whether it would make much more sense to stick with the same DB unless there’s a good reason for divergence.
SL Dev said they reengineered the database schema and didn't want to use the Lemmy one. Based on the summer performance issues, I guess it makes sense.
However unlikely that is … trying not to fragment the fediverse too much would be awesome and its pleasant to see some dedication here to that end.
At the end of the day, it's still Activitypub. The compatibility between Lemmy and Kbin works pretty well, most of the issues we had were federation related, and those existed within Lemmy itself.
Well there’s still the question of using MySQL (?) rather than postgresql, where all manner of expertise about the DB can be useful to share. Not sure what kbin uses, but pgsql is pretty common around the fediverse.
And yea, it is all ActivityPub. I’m just not as faithful in that as others tend to be. It seems to be a fuzzy system that allows idiosyncrasies to creep in. Mastodon and Lemmy don’t get along too well and so sometimes AP just isn’t enough (I’ve just been trying to help someone whose masto instance seems not able to post to lemmy). At this moment, getting along is valuable for the platforms, for the fediverse and for us users.
I can't find the fucking porn on Lemmy, so maybe this is a good thing.
Lemmynsfw
Don't thank us.
lemm.ee doesn't block it, so it's not a problem with your instance. You don't have to ask how I know
Not sure whether this implementation will be lighter on resources than what Lemmy currently uses. Given the overhead of the JVM though, it's unlikely it will be supported by, say, a single Raspberry Pi
JVM doesn't have much overhead. Java 1.3 days are long gone.