Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
what is being done about the lag? what is the problem?
Too many people using the site. Feel free to be noble and sacrifice
yourself for the common good. ;)
Seriously, our database backend isn't structured as efficiently as it
might be, and MySQL is not very forgiving. As the site gets more popular
(and more widely linked-to), load at peak hours (mid-day in the US) gets
to be too much for the poor thing. The db freezes up from too many
simultaneous accesses, and you hhaaavveee ttttooooooo wwwwaaaaaiiiittttt
aaaaa llloooonnngggg ttttiiimmmmeeee fffffoooorrrr aaaannnnnyyyy
ttttthhhhiiinngggg.
Replacing MySQL with Postgresql, which has better locking and is said to
scale better to heavy loads, is one option being explored.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)