Been busy...
...with a deadline for an analysis document at work, so haven't had the time to update on many things that I should have.
Firstly I have to say that last weekend in Christchurch was one of the most wonderful times I have had. Some of you will have had some idea about went on, but I'm not going to go into detail on a public post!
Suffice it to say that the weekend was spent with my love, good times, good food, the watching of Heroes together, a special party, walks in the sun with pets, and relaxing in many ways. I have to mention one moment.
After the party, well after midnight on Satyrday night, I stood under the moon, in black leather trench coat, but bare chested, with cuffs on each wrist, smoking a clove and enjoying the night. God, I felt so goth! Except I was happy! :)
Happiness was helped by being far more relaxed due to a fixed and working car and a recent bonus that meant I was not spending in overdraft mode. :)
Tuesday I attended a talk by Timeless, DBA for digg.com, and also at one time for LJ as well, which had been organized by Unlimited Potential about scaling web-site databases. Perhaps the oddest thing about it was that they were talking about solving problems by writing new code and scripts, using solutions that they had thought up themselves, but those problems are well known with lots of prior art and solution's already available. The web world has a massive case of not-invented-here syndrome!
And they still don't understand true costs or performance analysis! Timeless was talking about using memcached (a free, open source, distributed memory cache developed for LJ) to recover scraps of unused ram from multiple servers to act as a database query cache. He was talking about doing all this work just to gain a memory cache of 32Gb! But the cost of 32Gb of actual physical RAM bought and placed in the machines that need the cache is far less than the time cost of the developer used to implement and manage that cache!
And that's not even mentioning the fact that because network latency, such a cache may well be slower than retrieving the data from the database directly. Add to that the fact that he had already stated that network saturation was a significant bottleneck, and the use of a distributed cache would definitely not be helping that.
Finally the cache was not write-thru, and the application therefore needed specific code all over the place to check for stale cache items in the face of updates!
Have none of these people done computer science?
Still it was interesting to see that all the "hot sites" are really crappy hacks put together out of baling twine and old rubbish. It's amazing they actually work!
Not to mention free beer and pizza with geeks!
Tonight I need to fill the rubbish bin with more garden rubbish and collect up all the empty beer and energy drink bottles wasup_bro and panda_pitt have built up in the pantry for putting out with the rubbish tomorrow :) This weekend will be one of work around the house I think, though I am ahead after evie_fae spurred me into cleaning up the bathroom Monday night :)
Thanks for all the nice comments from everyone for being chauffeur last Friday night, but really, it wasn't a big problem, I liked spending the little time I could with you all, and I had tons of time to get to the airport. I mean, what guy wouldn't like having a car-load of hot chicks to ferry around, anyway? ]:-D>
Finally, happy birthday to allyn and lamprey, two of the loveliest men I know!
Firstly I have to say that last weekend in Christchurch was one of the most wonderful times I have had. Some of you will have had some idea about went on, but I'm not going to go into detail on a public post!
Suffice it to say that the weekend was spent with my love, good times, good food, the watching of Heroes together, a special party, walks in the sun with pets, and relaxing in many ways. I have to mention one moment.
After the party, well after midnight on Satyrday night, I stood under the moon, in black leather trench coat, but bare chested, with cuffs on each wrist, smoking a clove and enjoying the night. God, I felt so goth! Except I was happy! :)
Happiness was helped by being far more relaxed due to a fixed and working car and a recent bonus that meant I was not spending in overdraft mode. :)
Tuesday I attended a talk by Timeless, DBA for digg.com, and also at one time for LJ as well, which had been organized by Unlimited Potential about scaling web-site databases. Perhaps the oddest thing about it was that they were talking about solving problems by writing new code and scripts, using solutions that they had thought up themselves, but those problems are well known with lots of prior art and solution's already available. The web world has a massive case of not-invented-here syndrome!
And they still don't understand true costs or performance analysis! Timeless was talking about using memcached (a free, open source, distributed memory cache developed for LJ) to recover scraps of unused ram from multiple servers to act as a database query cache. He was talking about doing all this work just to gain a memory cache of 32Gb! But the cost of 32Gb of actual physical RAM bought and placed in the machines that need the cache is far less than the time cost of the developer used to implement and manage that cache!
And that's not even mentioning the fact that because network latency, such a cache may well be slower than retrieving the data from the database directly. Add to that the fact that he had already stated that network saturation was a significant bottleneck, and the use of a distributed cache would definitely not be helping that.
Finally the cache was not write-thru, and the application therefore needed specific code all over the place to check for stale cache items in the face of updates!
Have none of these people done computer science?
Still it was interesting to see that all the "hot sites" are really crappy hacks put together out of baling twine and old rubbish. It's amazing they actually work!
Not to mention free beer and pizza with geeks!
Tonight I need to fill the rubbish bin with more garden rubbish and collect up all the empty beer and energy drink bottles wasup_bro and panda_pitt have built up in the pantry for putting out with the rubbish tomorrow :) This weekend will be one of work around the house I think, though I am ahead after evie_fae spurred me into cleaning up the bathroom Monday night :)
Thanks for all the nice comments from everyone for being chauffeur last Friday night, but really, it wasn't a big problem, I liked spending the little time I could with you all, and I had tons of time to get to the airport. I mean, what guy wouldn't like having a car-load of hot chicks to ferry around, anyway? ]:-D>
Finally, happy birthday to allyn and lamprey, two of the loveliest men I know!