...because I/O is the limiting factor of database performance, not compute power?

Just a few projects into Database Performance Optimization would convince you that's not a true statement. IO/Memory/CPU are in fact largely interchangeable resources on a database. And depending on your schema you can just as easily run out of any of these resources equally.

For instance, I'm currently tuning a SQL Server database that's CPU heavy based on our load projection targets. We could tweak/increase query caching that would cause more resultsets to stay in memory. This would mean that less complex queries would be run, drastically reducing I/O and some CPU resource usage. But then drastically increasing memory usage. This is just a simple example of course to illustrate the point.

Databases run out of CPU resources all the time. And a CPU advancement would be very well received.

My guess as to why this hasn't been done is that it would require end-users to start buying/renting/leasing GPU enabled hardware for their Database infrastructure. This would be a huge change from how we do things today and this sector moves very slowly.

Also we have many fairly old but more important Database advancements which have been around for years and are still almost unusable. If you ever tried to horizontally scale most popular Open-source databases you may know what I'm talking about. Multi-master, or just scaling technology in general, is required by about every growing "IT-dependent" company at some point. But that technology ( though available ) is still "in the dark ages" as far as I'm concerned based on reliability and performance measurements.

I'd wish they'd stopping slowly and painfully going through the intermediate steps and standardize the Javascript Bytecode representation. Then javascript wouldn't be any slower than native code. Even faster in some situations ( due to runtime optimizations, if the Java folks are to be believed ).

Why on earth are we still only transferring Javascript as text? It doesn't really help security. Is obfuscated Javascript any easier to read than decompiled bytecode?

I love to code and have been ever since I owned my first computer, but the kids are right. Programming is hard and boring compared to a lot of things they could be doing. So may we can try to help them understand why this hard and boring task is still worth their time. Instead of try to put lipstick on that particular pig.

I agree. I didn't see the point of an ultrathin for a workstation so I got a System76 "Gazelle", Ubuntu 13.x, 15 inch, i7 Haswell, 16GB Ram, 500GB dual SSD that cost me $1.6K shipped.

As a Ubuntu user I don't understand why Canonical will sell my data to third-parties but not give me the option to pay for the software.

I've already paid $250 for VMWare Workstation and $100 for Windows 8 OEM as a guest OS. I'd happily pay $100 to Canonical for Ubuntu if they would even give me the option in return for not selling my search data.

Then things are much better than I thought. You can't have 2 successful people who when to prestigious schools not have connections all over the place. I mean "classmates"? That's it?

There were 4 bidders according to Reuters.

Where did you get your information?

Reuters puts money spent so far at $200M, and project at $300M. Source: As Obamacare tech woes mounted, contractor payments soared

You can make your point without resorting to embellishments you know.

There's no proof there was only a single bid. But a spokesperson from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) told the Daily Caller, “CGI did not receive any sole source awards. They competed for the work on our multiple award contract.”

But don't let facts get in the way of your rant by all means.

I understand the political grandstanders on both sides using this in their latest talking points but I really expected a bit more from Slashdot. Crashing Websites, Grumbling Users: Obamacare's Debut Is a Typical Tech Launch is the most balanced and informed article I've seen written on this topic.

Basically the webs has been out for little 2-3 weeks now. It's a National rollout. And it's all on 1.0 code. Of course there will be issues. Network design is done using estimates, but scaling is done using metrics. Load-testing with a 100K concurrent user target will not help you when 200K users show up at your door.

This is all business as usual at the start of the sign-up period. Where users can also call in their applications and also fill them out in person. I'd be surprised if they couldn't mail in their applications as well.

I'm 6'7'' so I never buy a ticket unless I can get an emergency aisle seat ( which have a lot more leg room ) or an affordable business class seat.

I know people a lot shorter but who do the same. So the admittedly small market is out there.

I'm typing this from a Ubuntu computer delivered to me just 2 days ago from http://system76.com.

Is it fair to blame Ubuntu for all the issues that come with building a computer from scratch?

But with that said, I agree the current Linux distros aren't ready for the average computer user. It's not Linux that's the problem. It's the fact that distros just don't put in ( or have for that matter ) the resources necessary to "polish" the OS.

We know Linux can do this because we use Android phones, and they work just fine for most users.

And personally I believe until distros put philosophy aside and concentrate on bringing in enough resources to fund continued development, Linux will remain inadequate for the average home computer user.

What a world... what a world...

Prefork plus increased file descriptors? You're kidding right? While you can get Apache to match NGinx, it's definitely nowhere that simple. As optimized as Unix fork() is, processes are going to use more resources than threads in this scenario every time. Prefork is the worse MPM you can use when you need performance. Even the Apache manual spells this out.

You'd have *begin* with worker or event MPM, use Apache 2.4 at least, and finely tune for your Application and specific load.

The benefit of NGinx is that you get a highly optimized web server right out of the box. You don't have to mess with the configs and you're almost there.

Technically the Apache team can do the same if they get rid of Prefork and a whole bunch of decades old legacy configuration options. Remove code processing modules from the webserver application space, i.e. get rid of mod_php for php_fpm, etc. All this can be configured now and you'll get that speed and stability, but it's just not done out of the box.

With NGinx it is. The only way to do things is the 'fast' or optimized way.

The same was not done for Samsung when their products were banned over flimsier design patents