Conspiracy Theory #1

[Travis Boucher]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Travis Boucher wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>
>>> Today that reality is very visible already from certain spots. I've 
>>> recently switched fields from machine learning/nlp research to 
>>> web/industry. Although the fields are apparently very different, they 
>>> have a lot in common, along with the simple adage that obsession with 
>>> performance is a survival skill that (according to all trend 
>>> extrapolations I could gather) is projected to become more, not less, 
>>> important.
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>
>> Except in the web world performance is network and parallelism (cloud 
>> computing). Much less code efficiency, much more programmer 
>> productivity (which currently is mutually exclusive, but doesn't have 
>> to be)
> 
> You'd be extremely surprised. With Akamai delivery and enough CPUs, it 
> really boils down to sheer code optimization. Studies have shown that 
> artificially inserted delays on the order of tens/hundreds of 
> milliseconds influence user behavior on the site dramatically.
> 
> Andrei

This is one thing that doesn't surprise me.  Even some large sites, when 
given a choice between a fast language with slower development (C/C++) 
and a slow language with fast development (Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP), the 
choice is almost always the fast development.

Sure, there are a few people who work on making the lower level stuff 
faster (mostly network load optimization), but the majority of the 
optimization is making the code run on a cluster of machines.  A site 
falls into 2 categories.  Needs scalability and doesn't.

Those who need scalability, design frameworks that scale.  Need more 
speed?  Add more machines.

Those who don't need scalability, don't care what they write in or how 
slow their crap is (you don't know how often I've seen horrid SQL 
queries that cause full table scans).

The fast, highly optimized web code is a very niche market.