On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
> My experience, FWIW, is that the interpreted aspects of the server
> rarely are the problem. Majordomo doesn't scale well to large lists,
> but mostly because it's spending its time whacking at flat text files
> (and I don't care how fast your language or server is, you can only
> grep through a text file so fast...). heck, I used to run a busier
> site tham the 1900/80 on a 68K box years ago.
I won't deny that in the least - one reason an abstract database support
layer (MySDL, Postgres, etc.) is a high priority for Listar. However, one
of the problems with Majordomo is also that, for a high-traffic list, it's
re-parsing the whole program (which is NOT a trivially-sized Perl script)
for each post. Ouchie!
> The big performance areas are the update I/O and delivery overhead.
> Both swamp whatever overhead the server language might cause... In my
> personal opinion, of course. No reason NOt to use C or C++, but I've
> got a modified version of majordomo running pretty well with well
> over a million subscribers. And it'll get even better once I fully
> get MySQL implemented on the back end (right now, we're only driving
> unsubscribes from the database, and feeding commands into majordomo.
> Soon, we'll simply be removing majordomo and driving it all with
> custom code)
Often times, this may be the way to do it. I've found it may be easier to
write a custom app than make an existing one do things the way that works
best for you. That's why I wrote Listar; I didn't want to hack Majordomo
anymore, and Smartlist... well, let's just say that giant Procmail scripts
as applications scare me more than giant Perl scripts do. ;)
(Actually, as far as I'm concerned, all 'general' apps should be easily
customizable and extendable - hence Listar's plugin architecture. But
that's neither here nor there.)
> > So, my PERSONAL opinion, between the two, is that I like Sympa better -
> > largely because it's closer to my own philosophy of how a mailing list
> > package should work, albeit with the one (to my mind) flaw of being
> > written in Perl.
>
> thanks. My 30 minute quick-lookover leans in the same direction, but
> I'd really love to run into folks who've used the servers and see how
> they run in the real world, before I choose one to start kicking the
> tires with...
I've been a subscriber on lists using both; I tend to prefer Sympa over
Mailman because I hate going to a website to tinker with subscription
options. I've admin'd neither, though - my admin experience is only with
LISTSERV, Majordomo, Smartlist (Bleah), and (of course) Listar.
> And, FWIW, the python/perl thing bothers me, too. Gee, just what I
> want to do -- learn yet another programming language.... (grin)
*laugh*
