> Where is the database, how are entries being stored?
> How does HN (Hacker News) handle the huge load and
promptly behave as expected, even though Arc wasn't
designed for speed?
All HN data is stored in text files and 90% of HN requested records (i.e. posts and comments) are held in memory for adequate performance. Also note that because 90% users only care about the top few pages of news, HN can get away with it. The remaining older items only get loaded into memory upon request, which isn't often, and they get dropped from memory over time.
Note that HN doesn't allow you modify records after a certain time frame and this gives HN the luxury to not support writes to older content and gives the users less incentive to go back to older items, lessening the need to access older data.
I believe the majority of applications many of us would need to write do not fit well into the HN model. So you'll likely discover arc has limitations given it was designed, largely, around HN.
