[NCLUG] programming question

[Gary Rogers]

I agree that web-enableing an app won't increase sales 1000 fold, but it
will definatly change the app from a relativly predictable usage curve to
one that is more spiky. The real solution to this whole thread is a well
thought out load test plan and implementation. That would quickly show where
an application needs to most help, if your 'oo' is getting you anything in
the app, AND if it's maintainable by your current programing staff as they
tweek it for optimum performance.

I don't know, I jumped ship on the whole Web thing 6 months ago as the
bubble was bursting, are development companies getting smarter about having
good designs and QA before they release an app to a real load test, i.e. the
Web?

g:wq

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Clarke" <clarke at clarkecomputer.com>
To: <nclug at nclug.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [NCLUG] programming question


> I agree that you can grow too fast, especially for a legacy app, and that
> you do reach a point where someone who can fix your bottleneck area is
> cheaper than throwing hardware at it.  Someone who understand concurrency
> and can design for it is well worth it.  A good design will scale up
> better than a bad one.
>
> I disagree that just web-enabling a system will generate you a thousand
> fold increase in sales(unless your sales sucked before!).  The whole rest
> of your business won't be able to handle it if it does, so the app isn't
> your bottleneck anymore anyway.  And hopefully your business model is
> designed so that the more sales you have, the more money you make so you
> can afford to throw $$$ at hardware and programmers.  If it isn't, you've
> got an inherent flaw.  And yes, a bad initial design may need to be
> scrapped for the real thing.
>
> charles
>
> On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Gary Rogers wrote:
>
> > Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 10:14:47 -0600
> > From: Gary Rogers <garyr at dmin.net>
> > Reply-To: nclug at nclug.org
> > To: nclug at nclug.org
> > Subject: Re: [NCLUG] programming question
> >
> > Not when you're dealing with systems that are (or percieved to be)
mission
> > critical. Take a hypothetical situation:
> >
> > You decide to replace your current legacy order fullfilment solution
with a
> > new Web-Based application. You roll it out to your company of 3000 and
> > everything is fine, order fullfillment is faster, things are going out
the
> > door faster, more efficiently, you don't require as much training of
your
> > warehouse and sales staff, and thus can afford to get 'cheaper' workers.
> > Now, management decides to web-enanable this system, re-using code that
was
> > designed for the Intranet. Now instead of haveing a peak load of 3000
users
> > you have a peak load of potentially MILLIONS of users. Granted it will
> > probably never be that, but then you never really saw a peak of 3000
users
> > either. True you CAN throw more resources at the problem, but they have
just
> > taken a larger cost than a day or two of programming time. In fact this
> > situation isn't too far off from e-bay in the early days. Trying to run
> > in-efficient code at Internet scales can bite you directly in the
posterior
> > (Mine is growing back slowly ;)
> >
> > Now all that said, in my experience on the Web a good PL/SQL guy is
worth
> > his weight in gold, as that's where I've seen the bottlenecks in the
systems
> > I've administered. Of course milage will vary (on & off?) with systems
that
> > are now geered to massive numbers of concurrent users. Personally I'd
say
> > you're better off documenting than adding functionality, but then that's
> > another holy war ;)
> >
> > g:wq
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Charles Clarke" <clarke at clarkecomputer.com>
> > To: <nclug at nclug.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 9:42 AM
> > Subject: Re: [NCLUG] programming question
> >
> >
> > > On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Evelyn Mitchell wrote:
> > >
> > > > It's really important to remember that programmer attention is the
> > > > one thing in short supply anymore. CPU speed, Disk space, network
> > > > speed.. all have improved so much that optimizing for them is
probably
> > > > a waste of your time. Yes, there are corner cases where an app is
> > > > just too slow, and needs to be fixed. But in all other cases, you're
> > > > probably better off adding new functionality than to be optimizing.
> > >
> > > And a faster machine/more memory/larger disk probably costs less than
a
> > > day or two of programming time.
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > NCLUG at nclug.org
> > > http://www.nclug.org/mailman/listinfo/nclug
> > >
> >
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> >
>
>
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