[Foundation-l] Re: Continued concern with performance

[Tim Starling]

Rich Holton wrote:
> While it appears that the developers are very busy attempting to 
> solve the technical issues, there seems to be little actual progress.
>  How long will we allow this situation to continue without attempting
>  solutions of a different sort? A good operational definition of 
> insanity is "continuing the same actions expecting different 
> results."

At this stage, I think we just need more hardware. I think we've solved
the major system administration problems. Software development will
continue with optimisation work but that's a long term goal even with
hired help. You could try using the site in off-peak times, it works
very well then. More hardware is on order.

> If our developers lack time, resources, or skill needed to resolve
> the issues, then let us immediately hire a temporary consultant to
> focus on this problem and resolve it.

What problem? You don't even understand what the problem is. I've 
repeatedly given my informed opinion on what is needed, and it doesn't 
involve hiring consultants at a rate of $100/hr. Long term work on 
optimisation is needed. JamesDay, our database optimisation specialist, 
can give you a list of features as long as your arm that would improve 
performance. I've tried and mostly failed to get people interested in 
writing such things. Hardware is needed, and rapid hardware repair is 
needed.

More system administrators are needed. My interest is in programming, 
but I end up spending most of my time on Linux system administration, 
because there's nobody else around to do it. Understand that Linux is an 
operating system I had *never even used* before I started on Wikipedia. 
I had to pick it up as I went along. It's a bizarre, flawed, buggy 
operating system which I only use because I'm forced to.

Paid system administration help may be an option, but the first priority 
for paid help should be hardware maintenance, since there are no 
volunteers in that field, and a small amount of time spent will make a 
big difference.

-- Tim Starling