[OSM-dev] Lean and mean Tile- and XML-API-Server

[Stefan de Konink]

Matt Amos wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Dave Stubbs <osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk> wrote:
>> 2008/11/21 Stefan de Konink <stefan at konink.de>:
>>> Don't waste your time on a language that does 90% for you
>>> sadly has no compiler to native machine code.
> 
> i'd have said the same thing about javascript a couple of years ago.

Yes this is *exactly* my point. Python/Ruby are great high level 
languages. But until there is any real progress in getting them to work 
at native speeds (or at least in the python case, better speeds are 
possible) it is not an alternative for HP applications, while for HA it 
can be a choice because of the design.

>> Meh, "proper" languages are often over rated. Machines are cheap,
>> developers are expensive, and code lives far longer than most people
>> hope.
> 
> to put it another way: computers are getting better and faster, but
> human brains have been the same for hundreds of thosands of years.

Faster is overrated; hence we are looking here at I/O and scheduling 
bottlenecks. Not even a Pentium X is going to get more speed out of a 
sata harddisk.

>> Which leaves the important question: does it matter for OSM?
>> (and is a full rewrite the best way of fixing it if it does)
> 
> we'll see soon whether api 0.6 will make things better.

Very true :)


Stefan