OT: why do web BBS's and blogs get so slow?

[Max M]

Paul Rubin wrote:

> Lots of times, when a blog (that supports user comments) or a web BBS
> gets heavily loaded, it slows down horribly, even when it's hosted at
> an ISP on a fast computer with plenty of net bandwidth.  I'm wondering
> what those programs are doing, that makes them bog down so badly.
> Anyone know what the main bottlenecks are?  I'm just imagining them
> doing a bunch of really dumb things.


Lot's of sql queries is a culprit.

Bad programming practices is another, with the code showing squared 
behaviour.

But the biggest problem is without a doubt a lack of caching.

A subproblem here is that the sites are designed without caching 
considderations in mind.

A Pentium 133 can easily fill up a 10Mbit line. That is a lot of requests.

So if you have a system that can generate static pages, that Apache can 
serve you can have really fast systems.


regards Max m