Which language is Craigslist written in?

Question

I know, I know - it probably doesn't (and shouldn't) matter - I've read this comment. But as a newbie just learning Python, I'm quite intrigued. The source seems to reference Javascript a few times - would the whole site be in this? Any idea about the rest of the technology stack behind the site?

Looking at the technology behind some of my fave sites is proving to be quite an interesting way to learn about the pros and cons of various languages/frameworks.

EDIT: Don't mean to sound like an exam, but give reasons for your answer :-) eg. why would/wouldn't you recommend following in their footsteps?

Offensive

You can't write a database-driven web site in entirely Javascript, by the way. It would be useless. – Kylakylah

@josh - now there's a challenge ;) – Haemostat

Is there a meta.craigslist.com where we can discuss this sort of things? – Elsey

@josh database driven websites written entirely in javascript is my full time job. The results are far from useless. See helma, axiom stack, jaxer, phobos. – Maidel

@josh, you should probably stick to talking about what you know. There are several ways to implement server side javascript. – Spinning

@Josh: uhhhhhh, ever heard of a little sumpin called AJAX? – Beckerman

@Beckerman "AJAX" has almost nothing to do with server-side JavaScript – Ky

Answer 1

According to this interview with Craig from 2008, it's mostly written in Perl.

EDIT: You also asked about the remainder of the technology stack used there, which in the interview linked above is referred to as "pretty conventional LAMP architecture, a whole bunch of Linux systems, Apache, MySQL, and Perl specifically mod_perl." As regards your specific mention of Javascript, Craigslist doesn't appear to be an especially Javascript-intensive site, but a quick "view source" confirmed that they do use jQuery.

Streamliner

Answer 2

From http://www.craigslist.org/about/thanks:

• linux - essential to craigslist
• apache - open source web server par excellence
• mySQL - a fantastic open source SQL database
• perl - virtually all craigslist software is written in perl
• GNU - emacs, gcc, bash, and the very concept of free software
• openBSD - virtually crashproof
• [...]

(the list goes on)

Av

Answer 3

Yeah Craigslist is built to run on absolute minimal processing power. I would NOT recommend following in it's footsteps.

EDIT

Just so no one gets the wrong idea. I'm not saying the way CL was designed is wrong. In fact it's pretty ingenious. However, they designed the application a long time ago and since then bandwidth, processing and hosting services overall have become much much cheaper. Essentially what I'm saying is, writing an application in the same manner now-a-days would be foolish.

Much love for CL though. I've landed quite a few clients through that site. :)

Marzipan

OK, I'm going to bite. Why would it be foolish? Just because bandwidth, processing and storage have become cheaper? You wouldn't try to use the minimum of those things, if you could? – Fang

Yeah yeah yeah, we've all read it. It's funny because the numbers are so small and nobody thought to ask what they were before they started. Craiglist bandwidth isn't small and you can't reduce it by 50% for fifty bucks. – Fang

Writing an application in what manner would be foolish? Using Linux, Apache, and Perl? Or is writing systems to use as little resources as possible foolish? Such a comment seems a bit naive. Writing a system to be efficient is ALWAYS a good idea. Just because computers are fast enough to hide your mess doesn't mean you should create a mess just because you can get away with it. – Energetics

Spoken like a true programmer who can't keep the big picture in mind. Efficient systems encompass more than just how quickly they can be downloaded or how quickly they're processed. It's also how quickly they can be scaled, modified, debugged and the like. If processing efficiency is the only criteria that matters we should all be coding in assembly. – Marzipan