PHK’s You’re Doing It Wrong
Think you’ve mastered the art of server performance? Think again.
Would you believe me if I claimed that an algorithm that has been on the books as “optimal” for 46 years, which has been analyzed in excruciating detail by geniuses like Knuth and taught in all computer science courses in the world, can be optimized to run 10 times faster?
Later in the article, PHK has a key example with Varnish’s memory management. In short, it doesn’t. It takes advantage of the fact that it’s on a great kernel that already does this for it. Far too often, we’re making userland software that behaves as if there is nothing underneath and instead strives to do everything. The result? Massive inefficiencies and performance far less than you should be getting.
Jason A. Hoffman 