Debate Dev Log · Oct 10

Last week's CPU scare got its sequel — this time not an investigation but surgery. The free tier was still tight, so the first four batches of the optimization plan landed, with one iron rule: not a single word changed in content or interaction rules. The biggest shift: the homepage no longer recomputes from scratch per request. Locale detection moved from server to client — switching languages no longer reloads the whole page; the scan of 800 questions plus 72 hours of votes and comments became a cross-request reusable snapshot; the homepage ships just 18 first-screen cards with the rest on cacheable pagination, and URL filters moved into the browser — pages can finally be truly static. First screen: 82% lighter. The new system had its teething period too: the snapshot exposed three edge cases on day one — scan volume hitting request-URL limits, cold snapshots not finishing during prerender, and snapshots not knowing when content changed — all three fixed the same day, with refreshes now happening only on content changes and real views, keeping prefetch and crawler fly-bys from triggering any work. Five hot-topic questions today, regional quota holding, and the rate type is back.