Mailing List Archive

The Need for Speed
FYI, I just changed http://susning.nu/ from plain old CGI to FastCGI
and it really makes a change. This is a UseModWiki, just like the old
pre-PHP Wikipedias. Plain wiki pages used to load in 2.5 seconds on
average. Now they load in less than 0.8 seconds (searches and recent
changes take longer).

Q: Why don't I change to the Wikipedia PHP software?
A: I've invested too much of my own hacking into the UseModWiki script
to abandon it quite yet. And converting to FastCGI turned out to
be a piece of cake.

Q: Why don't I run mod_perl instead of stinking old FastCGI technology?
A: I use a web hotel with Linux shell login accounts and they don't do
mod_perl. I think the reason is that scripts run under mod_perl
cannot change user ID to each customer.

Q: Does the site get any traffic?
A: It had 180,000 page views in April from 40,000 unique IP addresses,
growing at 40 % per month. Many hits are referrals from Google.


--
Lars Aronsson
<lars@aronsson.se>
tel +46-70-7891609
http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/
Re: The Need for Speed [ In reply to ]
I, too, can vouch for FastCGI. We run tons of stuff through it on
Bomis. It's the bomb. Of course, changing Wikipedia from php/mysql
to perl fastcgi/mysql would be a major undertaking at this point, and
reports from around the web suggest strongly that php is fast,
particularly when persistency is used (as we do).

--Jimbo
Re: The Need for Speed [ In reply to ]
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I, too, can vouch for FastCGI. We run tons of stuff through it on
> Bomis. It's the bomb. Of course, changing Wikipedia from php/mysql
> to perl fastcgi/mysql would be a major undertaking at this point, and
> reports from around the web suggest strongly that php is fast,
> particularly when persistency is used (as we do).

FastCGI would be a step back for Wikipedia. PHP is better.
FastCGI was an improvement for me, because I was running old CGI.

Plain old CGI is 1994.
FastCGI is 1996/1998.
PHP3 is 1999.
PHP4 is 2000.
- or something like that.


--
Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik
Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxköping, Sweden
tel +46-70-7891609
http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/