ASMBB: The forum software written entirely in assembly

Kyrne

As someone who programs in C, I'm a huge nerd for this type of stuff. Check it out: https://asm32.info/fossil/repo/asmbb/index

neptronix

That's epic in so many ways.

johnfound

The above link is to the source code repository.

The demo installation of the engine is on https://board.asm32.info

neptronix

While you're here..
I gotta know; what was the inspiration for creating this?

johnfound

neptronix

Well, I am writing virtually all of my programs in assembly language. And as a general, I am an assembly language programming propagandist.

So, when I needed a web site and was limited to use php and other "backend", "web" languages, I was a little bit irritated. So, in 2012 I created my first web project in assembly language MiniMagAsm. It is a little CMS for a blog type of web site. But it is CGI based and is unable to handle very big amount of users simultaneously.

Later I decided to create something that will show all the advantages of the assembly language, so implemented FastCGI framework and then a web forum, as a application that really needs all the performance of the server. In a result now I have a forum that is running on very lightweight (and cheap) web hosting and is almost impossible to be overloaded by an usual events such as slashdot effects and such.

In a perspective, I am planning to migrate to RWASA web server and this way to have the whole web hosting solution implemented in assembly language.

Kyrne

johnfound woah, just realised you're the developer of this. Gotta say man this is totally rad huge props for creating this. When did you first learn to code in assembly? Best I changed do is make a led turn on using varsioud sensors.

ganuonglachanh

johnfound it is amazing to see this forum.

I think you’re Neo that can see the Matrix code 😄

johnfound

Kyrne
Gotta say man this is totally rad huge props for creating this. When did you first learn to code in assembly?

I started with 6502 (Apple II) back in 1984th and later on 8086 (PC, DOS). Then stopped to use assembly and programmed in many different languages for decades (perl, delphi, etc.) and then (circa 2000-th) started to use FASM and to program in assembly language again, for protected mode OSes - Windows, Linux, etc.

neptronix

Nice, so you just stuck with what you knew. Not a high programming art concept piece, just an everyday thing lol.

I really wonder how many milliseconds your ASM based stack takes to serve a page vs say, apache. Ever benchmarked that thing?

johnfound

neptronix Nice, so you just stuck with what you knew.

Well, I am not the best programmer in the world. And definitely have problem to explain to the high level languages compilers what I actually want. So, decided to code it by myself

neptronix I really wonder how many milliseconds your ASM based stack takes to serve a page vs say, apache. Ever benchmarked that thing?

The page rendering time is at the bottom of every page. The time is displayed in milliseconds with "." as a decimal separator. The typical rendering time for the front page (threads list) right now is 5ms, but it varies a little, depending on the server load.

kari

Is faster then flarum and very simple.Im waiting for importers to test in live environement.

johnfound

ganuonglachanh I think you’re Neo that can see the Matrix code 😄

You are seriously overestimating both, my programming skills and the difficulty of the assembly language programming. It is usual programming - with code reusing, structural programming, data structures etc.

bkolobara

Wow! Really cool project. I love when people use languages/technology in unexpected ways.

But from a performance perspective; I doubt it could keep up with modern web frameworks. Something like Phoenix renders and serves templates in under 1ms. Rust also has some templating engines that are compiled and render in microseconds.

I wanted always to learn some asm for security/reversing purposes, but don't think I would be patient enough to write a whole web server in it.

johnfound

bkolobara Something like Phoenix renders and serves templates in under 1ms

AsmBB also renders templates for under 1ms. The time mentioned above is for total processing - database read, write, template rendering and sending everything back to the web server.

neptronix

bkolobara ASM will always be faster than a pancake stack of web technologies that are C/C++ based, and code on them that is php/js based, even if you miss a few optimizations along the way.

I don't know about the elixir language. If it is this fast, i need to personally look into it because i am also a high performance, low abstraction layer type of programmer. 1ms to render a template through a general purpose framework is pretty good.

Thanks for putting that out there.

johnfound

BTW, AsmBB v2.5 has been released.
Internationalization of the UI (EN,BG,RU,FR and DE), bbcode parser as a second markup option and performance boost are the main highlights of this release.

Also, the first attempt to migrate database from another forum (phpBB v2.x) has been made: details.

Any help with the translations and migration scripts is highly welcome. 🙂

Regards

Ralkage

johnfound Flarum seems to have those common issues it seems ha ha, translation validation (or just simply not enough translations being contributed to packages) and native migrations so to speak (aside from services 😉)

I am interested in learning about other forum platforms out in the big ol' Interwebs as well so I'm gonna take a look at your project as soon as I have some free time 🙂

johnfound

I created a small video that demonstrates how to install AsmBB and post a message for less than 2 minutes.

Well, it is not actually a production installation, but yet it demonstrates how simple is the installation process when you have no dependencies at all. 🙂

Also, you can see the amazing web server RWASA* in action!

* RWASA is a web server that supports TLS and is fully written in assembly language without external dependencies. It is created by the great assembly master Jeff Marrison.

MichaelVelichko

It's very cool ! ))

johnfound

AsmBB v2.7 has been released, now with support for database encryption.

It seems now AsmBB is the most secure forum engine out there. 🤣