Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Picking platforms based on performance

Posted by admin

Chris Petrilli talks about the delusions of grandeur that lots of programmers indulge in when they pick an environment based on performance concerns:

Write in whatever language you feel most comfortable and productive in. I know quite a few Python (either Zope or SkunkWeb) based websites that are running millions of hits per day. That puts them in the top 1%. Your site isn’t like that. If you think it is, you’re wrong. Maybe someday it might be, but deal with it then.

Couldn’t agree more. For almost a year, Basecamp was served well by a single, if beefy, server running web, application, and database services. We’ve just recently moved beyond that — after success was achieved. There’s no reason to gold platen a possible flop.