Okay, I've got so much email, maybe this has already been addressed, but
this pushes my buttons.


Bijan Parsia <bparsia at email.unc.edu> wrote:
> Right now, it's *impossible* to write a web
> server/web application that can handle multiple simlultanous requests
(at
> least, on the mac). 

Why can't it?  I just tried, and I'm downloading two different versions
of osprocess off of the Squeak swiki, which is running on a mac.  Both
download progress bars are updating simultaneously.


> *That's* intolorable. But it's *still* a hard sell if
> Squeak can't *well* handle the demands that something like (at least,
> earlier versions of) WebStar could handle, at least *in principle*.

Why does Squeak have to be like WebStar?

The strength of a Squeak server, in my opinion, is that it's easy to
write reasonably efficient programs for.  PWS is very similar in
architecture to servlets and the python_module which are getting so much
buzz, and it's good for the same reasons that those things are: it's
easy to program to, and you end up with something that's pretty
efficient (no new OS processes).



> And
> 24x7 decent performance for small to medium sized websites should be a
no
> brainer, at least for simple stuff (static page serving). 

We've pretty much got this.  Performance on the swikis is quite fine
except when:

	- the OS flat out runs out of sockets (what can you do then?)
	- you do a search on a swiki, or a recent changes on a large swiki

Neither of these has to do with networking.



For the servers used by a few thousand people, Squeak has proven to fare
extremely well.  It's not really known how much higher it would scale. 
Thus, while making things faster is always nice, let's remember that the
current situation is plenty fast for most people's purposes!


Lex