OT: why are LAMP sites slow?

[Kartic]

Paul Rubin said the following on 2/3/2005 10:00 PM:
> I have the idea that the Wikipedia implementers know what they're doing,
> but I haven't looked into it super closely.

Absolutely, hence my disclaimer about not viewing the Mediawiki code.

> Hmm, I wasn't aware that Apache 2.x gave any significant speedups
> over 1.3 except under Windows.  Am I missing something?

Architectural differences. Apache 1.3 spawns a new process for every 
request and before you know, it brings your resources to their knees. I 
don't know what effect Apache 1.3-Win32 has on Windows. Apache 2.x from 
what little I have used is pretty stable on windows and resource 
friendly. (I use Freebsd for serious work)

> Hmm, I'm not familiar with Nevow.  Twisted is pretty neat, though
> confusing.  I don't see how to scale it to multiple servers though.
> 
> I'm asking this question mainly as it relates to midrange or larger
> sites, not the very simplest ones (e.g. on my personal site I just use
> Python cgi's, which are fine for the few dozen or so hits a week that
> they get).  So, the complexity of twisted is acceptable.


True - That is why I can't wait for the twisted sessions during PyCon 
'05 :-)


> Yes, good point about html tables, though I'm concerned primarily
> about server response.  (It's off-topic, but how do you use CSS to get
> the effect of tables?)

My thinking is that all these pieces must fit in well. For example, your 
server response might have been good but the table-driven site could be 
slowing your browser down. The best way to test whether it is the server 
  response that is slow and/or table-driven page is to load that page in 
Lynx.

The CSS way is using <div> placement of the elements. Actually <div> 
gives better control over placement than with HTML tables. And with CSS, 
since you style the various HTML tags, you can create different "skins" 
for your site too. This is definitely OT, like you said, but if you are 
interested, please contact me directly. I don't pretend to be a CSS 
expert but I can help you as much as I can.

Thanks,
--Kartic