[lug] off topic web Q

[rm at mamma.varadinet.de]

On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 07:48:17PM -0700, D. Stimits wrote:
[...]
> They use entire
> Sun machines, not a shred of windows anywhere. The site that is in need
> of some big changes (it's basically the same "stub" site it was
> originally set up for, strictly to get some source code to some
> developers...the software is being completely redesigned from legacy
> code) is:
> http://www.battlefieldlinux.com
> 
> Almost everything about it is like Apache, except that it is designed
> for hosting services (it is the Zeus web server).

Ah, ok.  Just out of curiosity: where would you say Zeus is better/easier
than Apache for server hosting? The box i mail this from houses about 
60-100 domains (I gave up counting long ago). While i would label most
of these 'dormant' (Carpenter X goes eBussiness :-) some actually have 
quite a lot of hits (http://www.schauinsland.com/ for example) and 
there's quite a bit "fancy" stuff going on (like Zope servers behind
Apache, postgreSQL based message system etc.). 
So far i never found Apache not capable of doing what i wanted (i some-
times look after the server in exchange for mail services). 


[...]
> Probably I will give in and use javascript, but I absolutely hate the
> idea. Testing it to work correctly, even for simple things, is a pain
> with the different flavors of browsers (of which all are broken in some
> way, or just different).

Yes, i hate JavaScript too.
It's just insane. And given the bad security records it has since some-
one invented it (or better: patched it together) i try to stay away 
from it.

> What I was thinking of was the possibility of more intelligent caching,
> where I could instruct the cache to check for pieces of the page for
> change or not, and send only the pieces. I'd read somewhere about the
> possibility of more intelligent caching, but never could remember where
> (or if it was just a wish list).

Well, if your server sends the 'right' headers most of the static content
will come from the local cache anyway (images and other multimedia resources).
Anyway, even if you would resend all of the html code, how much data would 
that be? Compared to even moderatly sized images i think you can neglect
html code size. In my experience there are basically two bottlenecks that
affect the perception of speed of a website: 

 The number of tables on a page. Most browsers will only start rendering
 a part of the page once the outermost table is closed. If all of your code
 sits within one big table than the client has to wait for all the html
 before she start seeing anything (tables are way to often abused as layout
 managers these days).

 On a much smaller scale: Opening/closing of tcp/ip connections. Many small
 images are really bad. This will be/is taken care of by HTTP/1.1 which
 allows for connections to stay open at the transport layer as well as for
 chunking of content.

One (not too pretty solution) is using frames. If you don't overdo it
this is probably the way to go. I like the sidebar on Zopes managment
interface for example. Intuitive to use and pretty fast.

 Ralf