6 ms·

I totally agree that it's like a drug... eventually you'll start getting excited about an request time improvement from 15ms to 10ms by tuning your memcache cli

I totally agree that it's like a drug... eventually you'll start getting excited about an request time improvement from 15ms to 10ms by tuning your memcache client library... Realistically, though, basic client-side optimization (e.g. expires headers, minification and concatenation, unobtrusive javascript) is low-hanging performance fruit that can make a website seem a lot faster with very little work. Since, tuning a database-driven app takes a lot more skill and time, and most people haven't even done the client-side stuff, Google focuses on that.

andreyf 16y ago
No, but a request time improvement from 150ms to 50ms could have a demonstrable impact on your bottom line.
patio11 16y ago
Backend tuning also involves a lot of black magic, whereas going down the YSlow checklist and knocking things off will improve your perceived user load speed. If you don't gzip, gzip. Bam. Done. It will work. Tuning the database, on the other hand, crikey -- how many chickens does one have to sacrifice to become an expert DBA anyhow?
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  I think the DB equivalent of turning on gzip is slapping an index on your primary keys [EDIT: should be "on your primary data column"]. Not exactly expert material, and quite useful.
  - patio11 16y ago
    I am unaware of a commonly used database where primary keys are not indexed by default. Granted, on a good day I can spell SQL correctly, but it was my impression that primary keys imply an index by definition. Can someone rectify my understanding?
    - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
      Yeah, you're right. Call it slapping an index on the column holding actual data. My bad. (The reason that primary keys tend to be auto-indexed is simple: to verify uniqueness, you need to check whether the primary key of the record being inserted is already in any record. Doing this without indices would be painfully slow.)
joshfraser 16y ago
Up to a certain point, lot of backend issues can be mitigated by throwing hardware at the problem. At Torbit we've seen a lot of people realize their site were slow and their first response was to add more servers and upgrade to beefier boxes. By the time we get to them they've got their backend serving up HTML in 200ms but their site still takes 20 seconds to load. More often than not the front-end is the problem.

andreyf 16y ago

No, but a request time improvement from 150ms to 50ms could have a demonstrable impact on your bottom line.

patio11 16y ago

Backend tuning also involves a lot of black magic, whereas going down the YSlow checklist and knocking things off will improve your perceived user load speed. If you don't gzip, gzip. Bam. Done. It will work. Tuning the database, on the other hand, crikey -- how many chickens does one have to sacrifice to become an expert DBA anyhow?

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
I think the DB equivalent of turning on gzip is slapping an index on your primary keys [EDIT: should be "on your primary data column"]. Not exactly expert material, and quite useful.
- patio11 16y ago
  I am unaware of a commonly used database where primary keys are not indexed by default. Granted, on a good day I can spell SQL correctly, but it was my impression that primary keys imply an index by definition. Can someone rectify my understanding?
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    Yeah, you're right. Call it slapping an index on the column holding actual data. My bad. (The reason that primary keys tend to be auto-indexed is simple: to verify uniqueness, you need to check whether the primary key of the record being inserted is already in any record. Doing this without indices would be painfully slow.)

joshfraser 16y ago

Up to a certain point, lot of backend issues can be mitigated by throwing hardware at the problem. At Torbit we've seen a lot of people realize their site were slow and their first response was to add more servers and upgrade to beefier boxes. By the time we get to them they've got their backend serving up HTML in 200ms but their site still takes 20 seconds to load. More often than not the front-end is the problem.