2008/10/11 Robert Ullmann rlullmann@gmail.com:
Look at this way: you can't get enwiki dumps more than once every six weeks. Each one TAKES SIX WEEKS. (modulo lots of stuff, I'm simplifying a bit ;-)
The example I have used before is going into my bank: in the main Queensway office, there will be 50-100 people on the queue. When there are 8-10 tellers, it will go well; except that some transactions (depositing some cash) take a minute or so, and some take many, many minutes. If there are 8 tellers, and 8 people in front of you with 20-30 minute transactions, you are toast. (They handle this by having fast lines for deposits and such ;-)
Your analogy is flawed. In that analogy the desire is to minimise the amount of time between walking in the door and completing your transaction, but in our case we desire to minimise the amount of time between a person completing one transaction and that person completing their next transaction in an ever repeating loop. The circumstances are not the same.
And you can have enwiki dumps less than 6 weeks apart, it will just involve having more than one running at a time.