> -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Watts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 2:38 AM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: RE: CFSET in CFMX > > > > It's really interesting - to me - to see such attention > > to such 'small' language details in terms of performance. > > ColdFusion is the only language I've ever worked in where > > such small details made such big difference in speed... > > and now it seems it is only historical (which is code: > > CFML now behaves more like other languages). > > In my experience, which may run contrary to others', these > small language details didn't generally make much difference > in CF 5 or previous versions, actually. For some reason, > though, CF programmers have tended to focus on them to a > degree way out of proportion to their actual impact on the > average web application. I'm not sure why this is; I think it > might have to do with the degree of ambiguity and looseness > in CFML. I've worked with quite a few CF applications, > though, and I haven't yet encountered a situation where these > sorts of things were the performance bottlenecks within the > application. So, when I see these sorts of things, they bring > to mind debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I agree - but I also think that this focus on the ridiculous details is also a tangental sign of CF's community health. It seems to me that any community that deeply, truly, honestly loves the thing it's gathered about starts to "get into the nitty-gritty" like this. Bascially when the "big news" isn't there (new versions, etc) a dedicated community goes into the details with a force. You see the same thing in any fandom: science fiction (think of "Star Trek" and "Star Wars"), hardware (whether it's cars or computers - everybody wants that extra performance even if it's only on paper), music (even here somebody arguing vinyl vrs CD?), or what have you. I honestly don't think that it has anything to do with the way CFML is constructed - I really think that it's just another excuse for this community to keep on talking with each other. That being said I've done a lot of (past) work on some of this stuff... And pretty small changes could make for large difference. However the point remains firmly in place that these differences are only noticable in isolation and within a larger application are almost never great enough to cause problems. However there's also always something... Something that runs every template, something that the whole app hinges one... And that something (whatever it is) is often worth tweaking out as much as possible. > Meanwhile, I've seen far too many CF developers neglect the > very foundations of adequate web application performance - > caching, database optimization, server tuning, and did I > mention caching? True, very true. Of course that's what freelancing is there to fix... Did I mention that I'll be available for new clients at the first of the year? ;^) Jim Davis (Who is actually very serious about that last bit... www.depressedpress.com) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting.
