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Karl Matthias
relistan.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013
Karl Matthias, an engineer who writes about Go, Rust, Elixir, Cassandra, event sourcing, and other backend systems topics.
What HN saysHN links his Cassandra versus MongoDB comparison as a reference when discussing database migrations, and commenters remark on his early Rust posts.
19HN people shared it
3linked it in comments
23stories submitted
471story points
8 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Events, Event Sourcing, and the Path Forward3 people · 13 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 2The Kernel Change That May Be Slowing Down Your App3 people · 7 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 3Parsing Protobuf Definitions with Tree-sitter2 people · 107 points · first shared 2024 · 39 comments on HN
- 4Cassandra vs MongoDB For Time Series Data2 people · 100 points · first shared 2013 · 81 comments on HN
- 5Calling Go from Elixir with a CNode in Crystal2 people · 23 points · first shared 2025 · 11 comments on HN
- 6Writing Apache Spark UDFs in Go2 people · 4 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7A Pattern for Wrapping C Function Calls in Rust2 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 8A Week with Mozilla's Rust1 people · 180 points · first shared 2013 · 102 comments on HN
- 9Dynamic Nginx Router in Go1 people · 20 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10Writing Testable Code in Go1 people · 4 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 11Coordination-Free Database Query Sharding with PostgreSQL1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 12Building Tiny, Reliable Docker Container Images1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 13Cgo: When and (Usually) When Not to Use It1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 14A Mermaid Planning Tool for AI1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 15Sidecar: Service Discovery for All Docker Environments1 people · 1 points · first shared 2016 · 2 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
SigmundA · 2015-03-14
Can you give some context to your benchmarks because it looks like it's comparing messagepack to json in javascript which is one of the few places it would be slower than json. Since the json parser is implemented native vs message pack being implemented in js. Every benchmark I have seen in other languages where json and messagepack parser are on equal footing shows messagepack being faster and lighter. For instance on Ruby where Oj is tops in JSON, Messagepack is still faster: http://relistan.com/messagepack-vs-json-in-ruby/
Again on the server messagepack should be faster and use less CPU and require less bandwidth than json, the client will require more CPU but you have many more client CPUs than server CPUs.
Compression layered over text isn't free in any context, the closest it comes is pre-compressed static content, which would be great for the layout HTML,JMX and js files. Binary serializers like messagepack give you some space saving while also saving server CPU cycles rather than trading one for the other.
ptnapoleon · 2014-08-04
Here are two blog posts I was able to find from companies who switched Mongo -> Cassandra:
http://www.fullcontact.com/blog/mongo-to-cassandra-migration/
http://relistan.com/cassandra-vs-mongo/
The main selling points for Cassandra over Mongo are that it scales to more machines easier for handling larger workloads, and the write performance is better.
pohl · 2013-08-21
It feels like the author had a more fleshed out post in mind, but either decided it was running too long or got bored...
Or it could be that this post is just the beginning of his journey of learning & blogging about Rust. He did post another one 4 days later, albeit not yet touching on the topics you mention:
http://relistan.com/a-pattern-for-wrapping-c-function-calls-in-rust/