Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?

[Ask Bjoern Hansen <as...@valueclick.com>]

On Thu, 25 May 2000, Michael Nachbaur wrote:

[...]
> This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and
> changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well.  My experience with
> Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl
> turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark.  I know
> Perl can handle the performance.  What are your experiences with
> extendability and readability of code?

That Perl works very well in those areas.

The slightly longer story: At ValueClick we have far more than 10000 lines
of code (can't find an easy way to make a count right now, but I think
it's about 50000, highly reused and moduarlized and what have you not).
Our site served about 100 million dynamic impressions yesterday, mod_perl
in the front end and all our backend applications are in Perl too.

Bad programmers will screw up code in any languge. The "problem" for Perl
is just that it takes a lot less to get productive and useful, which puts
more less experienced people to the code. At ValueClick we're getting
pretty far with having our version control system sending mail to everyone
on the team with the diff everytime someone commits. That way no change
goes unnoticed and it makes it easy for the more experienced to catch
mistakes and give advice to the less experienced.

But this topic goes far beyond the scope of this mailinglist. :)

To not end up with a mess of a code pile and development process, your
usual deal of good practices and methods applies for any language,
including Perl.

Favorite books on the topic includes the mythical man month
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201835959/asksplayground and
"Rapid Development - Taming Wild Software Schedules"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556159005/asksplayground (yup,
it's a MicroSoft product, but it's truly recommended).


 - ask

-- 
ask bjoern hansen - <http://www.netcetera.dk/~ask/>
more than 70M impressions per day, <http://valueclick.com>

Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?

["Thomas S. Brettin" <ts...@nucleus.lanl.gov>]

Bjorern's statements below are consistent with my experiences with perl.
Our web sites which number around 10 (that I have been involved with in
some capacity) typically number around 50K lines of code.  We use perl
exclusively.

Experience, modularity and change control can go a long way.  I have
noticed no increase in the 'spagetti quality' since converting to
mod_perl.

Thomas S. Brettin
Staff Member
Bioscience Division, MS-M888
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545
505-665-3334

On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Ask Bjoern Hansen wrote:

> On Thu, 25 May 2000, Michael Nachbaur wrote:
> 
> [...]
> > This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and
> > changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well.  My experience with
> > Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl
> > turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark.  I know
> > Perl can handle the performance.  What are your experiences with
> > extendability and readability of code?
> 
> That Perl works very well in those areas.
> 
> The slightly longer story: At ValueClick we have far more than 10000 lines
> of code (can't find an easy way to make a count right now, but I think
> it's about 50000, highly reused and moduarlized and what have you not).
> Our site served about 100 million dynamic impressions yesterday, mod_perl
> in the front end and all our backend applications are in Perl too.
> 
> Bad programmers will screw up code in any languge. The "problem" for Perl
> is just that it takes a lot less to get productive and useful, which puts
> more less experienced people to the code. At ValueClick we're getting
> pretty far with having our version control system sending mail to everyone
> on the team with the diff everytime someone commits. That way no change
> goes unnoticed and it makes it easy for the more experienced to catch
> mistakes and give advice to the less experienced.
> 
> But this topic goes far beyond the scope of this mailinglist. :)
> 
> To not end up with a mess of a code pile and development process, your
> usual deal of good practices and methods applies for any language,
> including Perl.
> 
> Favorite books on the topic includes the mythical man month
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201835959/asksplayground and
> "Rapid Development - Taming Wild Software Schedules"
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556159005/asksplayground (yup,
> it's a MicroSoft product, but it's truly recommended).
> 
> 
>  - ask
> 
> -- 
> ask bjoern hansen - <http://www.netcetera.dk/~ask/>
> more than 70M impressions per day, <http://valueclick.com>
> 
>