The logical answer to that would be that Perl is notorious for being slow, and MySQL is notorious for being fast (that's the design goal).
Notoriety is one thing, reality another. A well-written Perl program can be very fast. MySQL used in a situation with lots of reads/writes happening at the same time on the same table can be very slow (table-level locking). I'm not saying that "slashdot is slow because it uses MySQL", because I don't have any evidence that MySQL is the bottleneck. I'm saying that saying "slashdot is slow, and it uses perl, and so do some other slow websites, so perl must be slow" isn't a very compelling argument.
To me, it seems like it would only make sense to run lightweight static Apache daemons alongside mod_perl-equipped daemons if there was any static content on slashdot that is frequently accessed. I don't see how a proxy would help here.
The benefit of a proxy is this: there are a limited number of mod_perl processes running on a given server. Each dynamic request is handled by one of the processes. If the response is sent directly from the mod_perl process to the browser, then that process is tied up while the network connection is open. So, if the network is a little slow, the process will be sitting there and waiting for the transfer to finish, rather than generating more dynamic content for all the other requests that are lining up. If there was a lightweight process doing proxying, then the heavyweight mod_perl process would be free to go off and generate more dynamic content. Because the lightweight processes use so much less memory, you can have a ton of them sitting around and transferring files. See the mod_perl guide at perl.apache.org for more details.
It is true 1. that Slashdot uses mod_perl, and 2. that Slashdot is pretty slow, but why do you assume that #1 is the cause of #2? How do you know that the mod_perl processes aren't idling and waiting for the database to respond, which would be mySQL's fault? Or maybe the problem is that (as far as I can tell) a proxy isn't being run between user requests and the heavyweight mod_perl apache servers? There are a ton of things that can slow a web site down, and there isn't enough information available to us regular Slashdot readers to tell what piece of the process is to blame.
1) unless you have a 286 or even an 8088 I think you have a cdrom drive. What computer made in the last 6 years doesn't?
How about computers that you build yourself? I put a machine together that didn't get a cd-rom in it for about six months. When 99.9% of your software is downloaded, a cd-rom isn't all that useful.
if I prefer one kind of tea over someone else I don't think either of us is "wrong" in any meaningful sense - it truly is relative.
No, it's absolute. Both of you are making statements about a personal preference - tea x tastes better to you, tea y tastes better to the other person. You're not going to argue that the other person really likes tea x better, are you?
I believe the same holds for less trivial examples of differing opinion.
The difference here is that your initial example is about personal preferences - "I like this tea". Less trivial examples are about something that people have in commmon - "companies shouldn't take me to court for viewing DVDs on my computer". While it may be true that you and another person disagree about that statement, you are both still talking about the same thing - the goodness of viewing DVDs on one's computer.
Until there's a replacement for Exchange/GroupWise, we'll never switch, I fear. (hint, hint)
There is a replacement for Exchange that runs on linux / solaris / etc. - HP's OpenMail. It's a commercial app, although they are apparently making available a free linux download.
Unfortuantely if you have not used perl long you have not been able to learn some of its pains. Such as new versions breaking code
Funny, I just spent the weekend tracking down an error in a java application and finding out that it was due to the fact that Sun decided to change the File class between 1.1 (our development environment) and 1.2 (our production environment). So what did I say to myself? "how unreasonable... why can't we be using perl on this project..."
RDBMS design is relatively new in the long view of the art of Computer Science.
Has Computer Science really been around long enough to consider a 30-year old field "relatively new"? Even if you were to say that CS got going in 1940 (and I'd be interested to hear that argument), RDBMS ideas would have been around for 50% of the time, 1970 - on (or whenever Codd released his stuff).
p.s.- searle's "chinese room" argument can be torn to shreds by any sophomore/junior philosophy major in a matter of seconds.
Sure, it's weak, but let's not get ridiculous - I've known plenty of underclass philo majors who would have taken around an hour to persuasively critique the "chinese room" argument.
Now, if you'd have said any good sophomore/junior philosophy major...
Are you more comfortable with a Ford certified mechanic doing a break job on your Explorer or the corner mechanic who learned by the seat of their pants?
I'd be more comfortable with the corner guy. The only way an unaffiliated garage can stay in business for long is by offering good service - they can't rely on customers like you, who figure that the only mechanics who could possibly understand Ford brakes are Ford-trained. And I'd extend the argument back to certification, too. None of the people I'm familiar with who really know their stuff have bothered to get a certificate "proving" their expertise. Their track record (successful projects & happy customers) speaks for itself.
I don't know, people keep on telling me that the Corel installation process not only lets you point and click, but it even provides Tetris to play while things are loading... shouldn't get much easier than that.
just started getting my new smp box (BP6, 2 celery 500s) and I've noticed that M13 crashes randomly and often, while it is very steady on my K6. Planning to file a bugzilla report once I get a chance to delve into it a bit...
No thanks, the whole idea was to find a card that would let me play quake under Linux. I realize that my setup would be a rockin' quake machine if I were to install windows, but that's just not going to happen. (for one thing, that would force me to reboot every time I wanted to slip from productive to unproductive...)
I say this from very recent experience - This Monday morning I was working for a happy, promising startup, this Monday afternoon I was unemployed (no more company!). Turns out that the VCs lost interest and decided not to invest the $2 x 10^6 that they had promised - so we were instantly out of money. Completely out of the blue, too - they approved two new hires just last week. It makes no rational sense if you consider how seriously customers were taking us (http://www.multilogic.com, should be up for another week or two). So, from my experience: do your best not to rely on rational / reliable behavior from your VCs, and do what you can to have a contingency plan in place.
let's get serious here. the ONLY people who complain about unfair tests are the people who didnt do well (or the family and friends of said person).
Wrong. I scored in the top percentile on both the SAT and ACT, but complain loudly about the unfairness and inaccuracy of both tests. See Gould's Mismeasure of Man for some good background on the intelligence testing issue.
Why is "Java2" better than the "old" version? Is it because Sun gave it a bigger number, or is there really a difference? do you think that IBM might just have a good reason for not focusing their efforts on Java "2"?
Slashdot Mirror
The logical answer to that would be that Perl is notorious for being slow, and MySQL is notorious for being fast (that's the design goal).
Notoriety is one thing, reality another. A well-written Perl program can be very fast. MySQL used in a situation with lots of reads/writes happening at the same time on the same table can be very slow (table-level locking). I'm not saying that "slashdot is slow because it uses MySQL", because I don't have any evidence that MySQL is the bottleneck. I'm saying that saying "slashdot is slow, and it uses perl, and so do some other slow websites, so perl must be slow" isn't a very compelling argument.
To me, it seems like it would only make sense to run lightweight static Apache daemons alongside mod_perl-equipped daemons if there was any static content on slashdot that is frequently accessed. I don't see how a proxy would help here.
The benefit of a proxy is this: there are a limited number of mod_perl processes running on a given server. Each dynamic request is handled by one of the processes. If the response is sent directly from the mod_perl process to the browser, then that process is tied up while the network connection is open. So, if the network is a little slow, the process will be sitting there and waiting for the transfer to finish, rather than generating more dynamic content for all the other requests that are lining up. If there was a lightweight process doing proxying, then the heavyweight mod_perl process would be free to go off and generate more dynamic content. Because the lightweight processes use so much less memory, you can have a ton of them sitting around and transferring files. See the mod_perl guide at perl.apache.org for more details.
It is true 1. that Slashdot uses mod_perl, and 2. that Slashdot is pretty slow, but why do you assume that #1 is the cause of #2? How do you know that the mod_perl processes aren't idling and waiting for the database to respond, which would be mySQL's fault? Or maybe the problem is that (as far as I can tell) a proxy isn't being run between user requests and the heavyweight mod_perl apache servers? There are a ton of things that can slow a web site down, and there isn't enough information available to us regular Slashdot readers to tell what piece of the process is to blame.
1) unless you have a 286 or even an 8088 I think you have a cdrom drive. What computer made in the last 6 years doesn't?
How about computers that you build yourself? I put a machine together that didn't get a cd-rom in it for about six months. When 99.9% of your software is downloaded, a cd-rom isn't all that useful.
You're forgetting to actually re-run lilo!
this would be a good thing to do before rebooting.
if I prefer one kind of tea over someone else I don't think either of us is "wrong" in any meaningful sense - it truly is relative.
No, it's absolute. Both of you are making statements about a personal preference - tea x tastes better to you, tea y tastes better to the other person. You're not going to argue that the other person really likes tea x better, are you?
I believe the same holds for less trivial examples of differing opinion.
The difference here is that your initial example is about personal preferences - "I like this tea". Less trivial examples are about something that people have in commmon - "companies shouldn't take me to court for viewing DVDs on my computer". While it may be true that you and another person disagree about that statement, you are both still talking about the same thing - the goodness of viewing DVDs on one's computer.
Though it has been a good 4 years since I looked at any german...
I think you might have missed a buzzword or two in your post.
No... wait... I can't think of any other buzzwords... maybe you did use them all. You must be a manager.
Until there's a replacement for Exchange/GroupWise, we'll never switch, I fear. (hint, hint)
There is a replacement for Exchange that runs on linux / solaris / etc. - HP's OpenMail. It's a commercial app, although they are apparently making available a free linux download.
Unfortuantely if you have not used perl long you have not been able to learn some of its pains. Such as new versions breaking code
Funny, I just spent the weekend tracking down an error in a java application and finding out that it was due to the fact that Sun decided to change the File class between 1.1 (our development environment) and 1.2 (our production environment). So what did I say to myself? "how unreasonable... why can't we be using perl on this project..."
HTTP and Web-browsers however are a very poor means of communication and IMO will probably die in the next few years.
Sure... by 2003 it'll all be RMI calls... no doubt in my mind.
http://www.phone.com
http://www.wapdevelopers.org
RDBMS design is relatively new in the long view of the art of Computer Science.
Has Computer Science really been around long enough to consider a 30-year old field "relatively new"? Even if you were to say that CS got going in 1940 (and I'd be interested to hear that argument), RDBMS ideas would have been around for 50% of the time, 1970 - on (or whenever Codd released his stuff).
p.s.- searle's "chinese room" argument can be torn to shreds by any sophomore/junior philosophy major in a matter of seconds.
Sure, it's weak, but let's not get ridiculous - I've known plenty of underclass philo majors who would have taken around an hour to persuasively critique the "chinese room" argument.
Now, if you'd have said any good sophomore/junior philosophy major...
Are you more comfortable with a Ford certified mechanic doing a break job on your Explorer or the corner mechanic who learned by the seat of their pants?
I'd be more comfortable with the corner guy. The only way an unaffiliated garage can stay in business for long is by offering good service - they can't rely on customers like you, who figure that the only mechanics who could possibly understand Ford brakes are Ford-trained. And I'd extend the argument back to certification, too. None of the people I'm familiar with who really know their stuff have bothered to get a certificate "proving" their expertise. Their track record (successful projects & happy customers) speaks for itself.
Okay, so I use Winblows. It's hard not to.;-)
I don't know, people keep on telling me that the Corel installation process not only lets you point and click, but it even provides Tetris to play while things are loading... shouldn't get much easier than that.
just started getting my new smp box (BP6, 2 celery 500s) and I've noticed that M13 crashes randomly and often, while it is very steady on my K6. Planning to file a bugzilla report once I get a chance to delve into it a bit...
C'mon, slashdot readers have TVs too...
Get a copy of *shudder* Windows 98
No thanks, the whole idea was to find a card that would let me play quake under Linux. I realize that my setup would be a rockin' quake machine if I were to install windows, but that's just not going to happen. (for one thing, that would force me to reboot every time I wanted to slip from productive to unproductive...)
...after 6 months of waiting around for better drivers, I'm just about ready to pick up a G200.
I say this from very recent experience - This Monday morning I was working for a happy, promising startup, this Monday afternoon I was unemployed (no more company!). Turns out that the VCs lost interest and decided not to invest the $2 x 10^6 that they had promised - so we were instantly out of money. Completely out of the blue, too - they approved two new hires just last week. It makes no rational sense if you consider how seriously customers were taking us (http://www.multilogic.com, should be up for another week or two). So, from my experience: do your best not to rely on rational / reliable behavior from your VCs, and do what you can to have a contingency plan in place.
let's get serious here. the ONLY people who
complain about unfair tests are the people who
didnt do well (or the family and friends of said
person).
Wrong. I scored in the top percentile on both the SAT and ACT, but complain loudly about the unfairness and inaccuracy of both tests. See Gould's Mismeasure of Man for some good background on the intelligence testing issue.
...before buying a book
I figure it was just someones netscape that went wild. :)
But netscape doesn't usually take machines down with it... but they could have been playing with the latest build of Mozilla!
Why is "Java2" better than the "old" version? Is it because Sun gave it a bigger number, or is there really a difference? do you think that IBM might just have a good reason for not focusing their efforts on Java "2"?
--
The average Slashdotter seems genuinely to think that the entire 'Net could be run on beige x86 boxes running Linux.
Nonsense! Haven't you read all the stories about cool cases?