Will Rails be able to do this -fast-?

Rails
21

jhaagmans wrote:

Because I will not be doing infrastructure monitoring. I’m querying
servers and applications running on servers (could even be PHP
scripts) for actual information which I will use in the applications.

Anyway, if you’ve been told every millisecond counts, you need to know
why. �Do you?

I do. And he’s not exaggerating.

And the plot thickens. One more time, then - you are being asked to
develop a real-time application which depends on :
a) a network
b) other computers
c) applications on other computers
d) at least one email server

And every millisecond counts? [ Hey, can I have fries with that? :slight_smile: ]

22

jhaagmans wrote:

And the plot thickens. One more time, then - you are being asked to
develop a real-time application which depends on :
a) a network
b) other computers
c) applications on other computers
d) at least one email server

And every millisecond counts? [ Hey, can I have fries with that? :slight_smile: ]

Just remember to forget about the why.

Um…no. I’m not trying to pry into your requirements, but I am
telling you that your requirements must make sense, or else your project
is doomed.

You are being asked to build an F-16 with your choice of a bicycle or a
moped as engine. Oh, and it has to have a fuel efficiency of 30 MPG,
and don’t spend too much time developing it. Your requirements do not
make sense.

The how, that’s what I need
help with. I’ll be looking at the possibilities tomorrow and decide
what I think is best.

You’ve been given a self-inconsistent set of requirements. Don’t even
bother until you can get a more feasible set of requirements.

“just remember to forget” … I should write that one down !

I should write that down too – as a sign that a project is in trouble.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

23

And the plot thickens. One more time, then - you are being asked to
develop a real-time application which depends on :
a) a network
b) other computers
c) applications on other computers
d) at least one email server

And every millisecond counts? [ Hey, can I have fries with that? :slight_smile: ]

Just remember to forget about the why. The how, that’s what I need
help with. I’ll be looking at the possibilities tomorrow and decide
what I think is best.

“just remember to forget” … I should write that one down !

24

Um…no. I’m not trying to pry into your requirements, but I am
telling you that your requirements must make sense, or else your project
is doomed.

You are being asked to build an F-16 with your choice of a bicycle or a
moped as engine. Oh, and it has to have a fuel efficiency of 30 MPG,
and don’t spend too much time developing it. Your requirements do not
make sense.

I’m not bound to using PHP, Ruby or anything. I’m just bound to a
certain budget which limits my possibilities. And that will limit the
speed of the application. It will be a matter of as fast as possible
though, which is why I want to do this using the right tool.

The requirements make sense. At least, to me they do. He also has his
reasons to believe this can be done on a low budget. And the thing is,
I don’t doubt it.

The goal of the application is to increase the success rate of my
client’s business. Say it’s at 1:1000 right now. If I can get it up to
1:500 (which is a matter of speed in this case) I will have myself one
happy client. However, if I can get it up to 1:400, I will have an
even happier client. If I exceed the budget by more than say, 10%, I
will have an angry client. So I need to increase the speed by as much
as possible within the budget.

So again I ask you to stop questioning the why. If it’s not possible,
I will find that out and so will he. But I do want to give this an
honest chance.

25

Thanks Marnen.

But again, I know about the why. And I can ask my client those
questions. I’m just saying -you- shouldn’t, simply because I can’t
tell you. Everyone has been very helpful as to how I might be able to
pull this off and that’s what I wanted from this. None of my projects
have thusfar resulted in a big traincrash and I highly doubt this one
will.

26

jhaagmans wrote:

Um…no. �I’m not trying to pry into your requirements, but I am
telling you that your requirements must make sense, or else your project
is doomed.

You are being asked to build an F-16 with your choice of a bicycle or a
moped as engine. �Oh, and it has to have a fuel efficiency of 30 MPG,
and don’t spend too much time developing it. �Your requirements do not
make sense.

I’m not bound to using PHP, Ruby or anything. I’m just bound to a
certain budget which limits my possibilities. And that will limit the
speed of the application. It will be a matter of as fast as possible
though, which is why I want to do this using the right tool.

That makes a lot more sense.

The requirements make sense. At least, to me they do. He also has his
reasons to believe this can be done on a low budget. And the thing is,
I don’t doubt it.

I do. At least, I doubt that it can be done on a low budget by you.
I don’t mean that as an insult, just that based on the questions you’ve
asked in this thread, your expertise seems to be elsewhere, so it will
take you more time and effort for this project than it would someone who
does this kind of stuff all the time.

The goal of the application is to increase the success rate of my
client’s business. Say it’s at 1:1000 right now. If I can get it up to
1:500 (which is a matter of speed in this case) I will have myself one
happy client. However, if I can get it up to 1:400, I will have an
even happier client. If I exceed the budget by more than say, 10%, I
will have an angry client. So I need to increase the speed by as much
as possible within the budget.

In other words, your client will not be willing to pay that extra 10%
even if he gets an extra 20% beyond what he was promised in success
increase. Right? If that’s so, dump the client. He wants the world on
a shoestring.

So again I ask you to stop questioning the why.

I hear this from clients too from time to time. It is almost always bad
advice. If you can’t say “why do you need this” to your client, then
you cannot help your client optimally. Requirements are not articles of
faith.

If it’s not possible,
I will find that out and so will he. But I do want to give this an
honest chance.

Then ask questions and listen to the advice you’ve been getting in this
thread. Better yet, find a TCP/IP/real-time systems weenie to work
with. Right now, this project has “Daily WTF” written all over it –
and that will result in a very angry client.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

27

2009/9/4 jhaagmans [email protected]:

Thanks Marnen.

But again, I know about the why. And I can ask my client those
questions. I’m just saying -you- shouldn’t, simply because I can’t
tell you. Everyone has been very helpful as to how I might be able to
pull this off and that’s what I wanted from this. None of my projects
have thusfar resulted in a big traincrash and I highly doubt this one
will.
–~–~---------~–~----~------------~-------~–~----~

I wonder if it is the sending of the email that is important here.
Perhaps the time at which it is received is not important.

Colin

28

Thanks Colin,

I wonder if it is the sending of the email that is important here.
Perhaps the time at which it is received is not important.

It’s actually something in between. The moment at which the e-mail
leaves our machine is important to me. After that we will have to
accept that it might get caught up somewhere. At least, I think we
will… If the remote machine queues it up, we don’t know what
happens, we’re not sure how the remote machine handles messages that
were delayed by its own infrastructure. But I will have to do some
trial and error there.

29

You know that just about everything email-wise can be falsified,
including timestamps, right?

I do :slight_smile:

However, I doubt that timestamps matter for the remote machine. I
think everything is processed in the order it got in. But again, we’ll
need to find that out. I can’t be sure about it.

30

jhaagmans wrote:

Thanks Colin,

I wonder if it is the sending of the email that is important here.
Perhaps the time at which it is received is not important.

It’s actually something in between. The moment at which the e-mail
leaves our machine is important to me. After that we will have to
accept that it might get caught up somewhere. At least, I think we
will… If the remote machine queues it up, we don’t know what
happens, we’re not sure how the remote machine handles messages that
were delayed by its own infrastructure. But I will have to do some
trial and error there.

You know that just about everything email-wise can be falsified,
including timestamps, right?

31

jhaagmans wrote:

Thanks Marnen.

But again, I know about the why. And I can ask my client those
questions.

Good

I’m just saying -you- shouldn’t, simply because I can’t
tell you.

You don’t get it, then. I’m not asking because I want the answers; I’m
asking to make sure you can formulate the answers. Apparently you
can; if so, great.

Everyone has been very helpful as to how I might be able to
pull this off and that’s what I wanted from this. None of my projects
have thusfar resulted in a big traincrash and I highly doubt this one
will.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I cannot see how it will be anything but.
You’re trying to implement a real-time low-latency messaging queue over
e-mail, and you’re trying to do it on a low budget. Moreover, your
expertise seems to be in a different area, so you’ll be spending lots of
that low budget on research. I suppose it’s possible to pull these
chestnuts out of the fire, but suffice it to say that I’m really
worried.

BTW, is the machine on the receiving end actually checking e-mail often
enough that every millisecond is significant? I would doubt it, and if
not, then this whole project is a waste of time.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

32

jhaagmans wrote:

You know that just about everything email-wise can be falsified,
including timestamps, right?

I do :slight_smile:

However, I doubt that timestamps matter for the remote machine. I
think everything is processed in the order it got in. But again, we’ll
need to find that out. I can’t be sure about it.

Can you ask the folks who control the recipient machine? The less
guessing you have to do, the better.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

33

BTW, is the machine on the receiving end actually checking e-mail often
enough that every millisecond is significant? I would doubt it, and if
not, then this whole project is a waste of time.

Actually, Marnen, the smart thing to do here is not to rely on a client
but to set up a forwarding rule on the mail server itself so that the
email ends up someplace which is actively waiting for it.
Implementation to be determined :wink:

34

Aldric G. wrote:

BTW, is the machine on the receiving end actually checking e-mail often
enough that every millisecond is significant? I would doubt it, and if
not, then this whole project is a waste of time.

Actually, Marnen, the smart thing to do here is not to rely on a client
but to set up a forwarding rule on the mail server itself so that the
email ends up someplace which is actively waiting for it.
Implementation to be determined :wink:

Except that Jaap already said he doesn’t control the recipient.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

35

Can you ask the folks who control the recipient machine? The less
guessing you have to do, the better.

That’s obviously not possible, I’m not guessing when I could easily
ask.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I cannot see how it will be anything but.
You’re trying to implement a real-time low-latency messaging queue over
e-mail, and you’re trying to do it on a low budget. Moreover, your
expertise seems to be in a different area, so you’ll be spending lots of
that low budget on research. I suppose it’s possible to pull these
chestnuts out of the fire, but suffice it to say that I’m really
worried.

You shouldn’t worry about my project as much as you do. The app is not
as complicated as it may seem and my only worry at this point is to
get the e-mail out as fast as possible. But that can also be done at a
later time, because the automation of this process will increase
business success dramatically. However, it would be nice to do it
right from the start.

BTW, is the machine on the receiving end actually checking e-mail often
enough that every millisecond is significant? I would doubt it, and if
not, then this whole project is a waste of time.

Again, I can’t be sure about this, but I think e-mails received at
this address are piped through to an application. I know, it’s lame
and it sure as hell isn’t efficient, but I can’t change this. At least
I know our position in the queue is more important than the actual
handling time on the remote server.

36

Hi,

Sorry I am realy new in rails (and not good in active English, too
g). I need to administrate users with two roles. I have seen Aegis
and it seems to be very good for my needs

  • but as long as I haven’t found the clue, I can give there every user
    only one role.

Do you know another plugin, where I can static (and centralized)
define two types of roles (I don’t want to lose performance in having
an additional table in the database with many accesses) or are the
only two possibilities to write it myselft or to customize Aegis and
will need to make this anytime they will release an update of Aegis?

Thank you very much,
Bente

37

2009/9/4 jhaagmans [email protected]:

expertise seems to be in a different area, so you’ll be spending lots of

BTW, is the machine on the receiving end actually checking e-mail often
enough that every millisecond is significant? Â I would doubt it, and if
not, then this whole project is a waste of time.

Again, I can’t be sure about this, but I think e-mails received at
this address are piped through to an application. I know, it’s lame
and it sure as hell isn’t efficient, but I can’t change this. At least
I know our position in the queue is more important than the actual
handling time on the remote server.

Ah, right, it is where your email appears in the receivers queue
relative to everybody else’s emails that matters. That is why the
processing time at the receiver is not important. It is a matter of
getting your bid in before others that matters.

Colin

38

Ah, right, it is where your email appears in the receivers queue
relative to everybody else’s emails that matters. That is why the
processing time at the receiver is not important. It is a matter of
getting your bid in before others that matters.

Something like that, yes :slight_smile: Even though there are no real others.
Cryptic, ey? :wink:

Anyway, thanks for all the help, I’m writing my recommendations as we
speak and probably start work next week. I really appreciate you all
taking the time to help me :slight_smile:

39

Carl wrote:

Keep us in the loop. Whatever happens, I smell a useful article here
on whatever tips/tricks/pitfalls you discover. You are dealing with
various third parties and various protocols in a time sensitive
application, so whatever you find will be interesting, even if you
have to mock up the actual material (since you can’t seem to talk
about specifics this is understandable) I think it would still be
interesting to read.

I don’t know, thinking about this, it sounds like:
a) build a bunch of observers
b) gather data
c) put data in email
d) fire email
5) get coffee (hey, it’s Friday, I’m allowed to change bulleting style).

So who do you think is better at watching? I think the gem that was
suggested earlier on may really be all he needs… And a way to manage it
all.

I wonder, if you really want to shave off milliseconds, string
manipulation is probably too high level for you, but I am guessing by
now that you are dealing with human-readable data.

40

Keep us in the loop. Whatever happens, I smell a useful article here
on whatever tips/tricks/pitfalls you discover. You are dealing with
various third parties and various protocols in a time sensitive
application, so whatever you find will be interesting, even if you
have to mock up the actual material (since you can’t seem to talk
about specifics this is understandable) I think it would still be
interesting to read.