[Mailman-Developers] AOL's requirements for spam complaints

[Brad Knowles]

At 10:44 PM -0800 2004/01/29, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:

>  Sorry, I don't buy this argument. If you have two choices: use
>  more CPU time and network, or improve the end-user experience,
>  choosing "less work for the computer" is almost always the wrong
>  answer.

	You know damn good and well that this is not a CPU issue.  This 
is a disk I/O capacity issue (synchronous meta-data updates). 
Moreover, you also know full well that there are serious performance 
issues with enabling personalization mode on large mailing lists, 
such that for some lists, it would simply be impossible to do.

	The increased CPU utilization and network bandwidth can be 
problems for some sites, but that is not the gating factor in most 
cases.

>  Yes, you are. And fortunately, it's not the 70's any more, and
>  the resource limitations that caused those design decisions are
>  gone.

	This is not a valid criticism.  As network bandwidth has 
increased, the numbers of messages being sent and the size of the 
messages being sent has also increased, and the number of recipients 
has also increased.  What has *not* increased significantly is disk 
I/O latency, which is the gating factor for synchronous meta-data 
updates.

	You've got a significant increase in demand along three separate 
axes, without a corresponding increase in capacity.  Something has to 
give.  We have to be more intelligent about how we deliver those 
messages, or the entire system grinds to a halt.

>         We aren't on 9600 baud dialups any more, for instance, or
>  trying to run large mailing list on 286 class machines.

	See above.  The CPU being utilized is irrelevant.  What is not 
irrelevant is disk I/O latency, a fact that I know that you know as 
well as or better than most.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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