Anyone else thinking 'bout giving up using Boards?

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

What makes you think that such a query is expensive as things stand?

Because unless you have the requisite index, the entire table is scanned.

ecksor

Perhaps my question was unclear. What makes you think that such a query on our posts table is unduly expensive as things stand?

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

Perhaps my question was unclear. What makes you think that such a query on our posts table is unduly expensive as things stand?

a. Are you using MySQL?
b. Do you use a descending date/time index on your main posts table?
c. How big is your posts table?

ecksor

Why are you asking me that? I thought you already had the information you needed to come to the above conclusion.

I'm looking at queries like you described and they don't seem to me to be slow. How about you tell me why you think they are.

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

Why are you asking me that? I thought you already had the information you needed to come to the above conclusion.

I'm looking at queries like you described and they don't seem to me to be slow. How about you tell me why you think they are.

So why was the new posts facility removed and replaced with Board Tracker?

ecksor

DublinWriter wrote:

So why was the new posts facility removed and replaced with Board Tracker?

Ok, I see your confusion now. For one thing, that's ordering the thread table by default, not the post table but that doesn't change the principle much.

The "new posts" facility uses the vBulletin search facility which is all one php script. The whole thing was replaced rather than rip out specific queries.

In relation to your suggestion, we don't have a descending index. It's ascending.

philologos

6th wrote:

I'm not thinking about giving it up but i am thinking baout putting the whingers on ignore.

i'd agree with this, if you don't like boards why are you still using it?

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

In relation to your suggestion, we don't have a descending index. It's ascending.

Well, for starters that would be very slow when being hit for new posts as the entire index file would have to be read in to get the lastest entries, which would be positioned the end of the index.

I'm not sure how MySQL performs query optimisation, but my guess would be that it wouldn't even use that ascending date/time of post index and would just perform an entire table scan anyways.

I'm sure you've tested it yourself and all seemed fine, however get 20+ users concurrently hammering it and constantly checking for new posts every minute or so and I wouldn't be surprised if performance is dog slow.

ecksor

DublinWriter wrote:

Well, for starters that would be very slow when being hit for new posts as the entire index file would have to be read in to get the lastest entries, which would be positioned the end of the index.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/create-index.html

"An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently, they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order."

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/create-index.html

"An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently, they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order."

Interesting, and probably the best argument yet I've heard for avoiding MySQL as a DBMS in any serious production environment.

They're seriously telling you that it ingores ANSI-standard SQL and that the ASC/DESC is merely only a placeholder for some future features add-on and that indices are always ASC in nature by default?

But I note that you posted the syntax for MySQL 3.23, and the current version is 5? Surely the must have that addressed by now.

Personally I think I'll stick with Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server and DB2.

You learn something new everyday!

ecksor

But I note that you posted the syntax for MySQL 3.23, and the current version is 5? Surely the must have that addressed by now.

If only there was some way of checking these things out before posting and pulling suggestions out of your arse.

oscarBravo

DublinWriter wrote:

I'm not sure how MySQL performs query optimisation, but my guess would be ...

Not trying to be a smartass, but if you don't know how the database optimises queries, why are you trying to help?

DublinWriter

ecksor wrote:

If only there was some way of checking these things out before posting and pulling suggestions out of your arse.

Well, obviously the technical discussion has gone way over your head, so let me just conclude the argument with the comment "Yore ma".

Night night!

sceptre

Carnivore wrote:

Is this the make a wish thread?

I wish I wasn't a vigin.

I wish I was.

On an extremely personal and commentable note, I got my first possible mouth cold sore this week at the tender age of 31 as a result of a brief dalliance with someone who hadn't ticked off the relevant box on my pre-approval questionnaire which I hadn't read in full, judging purely by clean and shiny facial appearance. Let all be warned: it's out there and as part of an unholy alliance with broccoli and Osama bin Laden, it's about to try to annex a small area just above your gob. The battle continues. Then again, perhaps it's just a pimple I couldn't leave alone.

ecksor

It hardly matters whether the technical discussion went over my head or not if it bears absolutely no relevance at all to the actual software we use.

Oddly enough, when Just My View thought I was having a go at him about "trying to look clever" I actually had you in mind.

Gordon

sceptre wrote:

On an extremely personal and commentable note, I got my first possible cold sore this week at the tender age of 31

I heard that Herpes yellower than his, is this true?

sceptre

Gordon wrote:

I heard that Herpes yellower than his, is this true?

I'm obviously just not as kinky as you are Gordo so I just don't know.

ecksor

Unfortunately you just brought to mind a post that Gordon made about his Russian ex once

Sparky

Was she a nice looking Russian?

o_O

Any other vB site I have seen, (excluding the vb.com/org sites) have some sort of system switched off, and if they do not they usually only have under 200 online at a time. I'm sure I will be corrected at some stage on this anyway.

Digitalspy for example has no sigs or avatars. Imagine that!
Yet people complain about searches over here.

People. It could seriously be worse.

Villain

Sparky-s wrote:

People. It could seriously be worse.

We could have no Boards.

I wish everything was back to the way it was but given the option of:

A: Boards a bit slow every now and again with a not so good search engine

or

B:No Boards

I vote B and I'm old enough to Vote:D

Time Magazine

oleras wrote:

that looks like a basic asset sheet, nothing about revenue drawn in by subscriptions or advertising.....if you are going to publish their accounts, you should.

In a Profit and Loss account, one generally gets a generic 'Revenue' entry, which must be considered in tandem with costs. The remainder from the two - profit - is included in the penultimate line of the Balance Sheet, which I linked to. Furthermore the Balance Sheet provides information on the assets of a firm which are far more pertinent than their costs. For an organisation with five owners and 75,000 signed-up members the profit recorded, which I assume includes profit carried forward from previous years, is meagre.

oleras wrote:

im no accountant

You don't say...

Sparky

I think IBid is!

Time Magazine

I'm not an accountant, economists for the win.

Hullaballoo, are you anything to the bassist in The Frames?

Finally, on-topic, I tend to agree with those who say if you want to give up Boards just stop signing-on. I, too, have felt pissed off at Boards, but it's usually after a run-in with a mod or something like that.

pH

DublinWriter wrote:

Well, obviously the technical discussion has gone way over your head, so let me just conclude the argument with the comment "Yore ma".

Night night!

Just in case you've gone to bed all smug, I regret to inform you:

You know jack-**** about how any RDBMS works, in particular how indexes work.

MySQL lacking a DESC for indexes in not a major problem, an ASC index can and is used for descending queries. In certain implementations it may not be as quite as peformant as using the index in ASC order, but it doesn't have to scan the entire 'file' - only a totally incompetent buffoon would claim that.


Only SQL nerds need read this - To get really technical you need DESC if you want an ascending field *and* a descending field in the SAME index, but I've probably lost you and it's way off topic.

Rollo Tamasi

I haven't read the entire thread...but have ye looked into using ioncube compression on your php files to compress the size of the pages and hopefully decrease page loads?
http://www.ioncube.com/sa_encoder.php

Also, have you considered reducing the forum width by adding in a column on the right hand side for corporate advertising? Something similar to here >
http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/~peoplesr/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=17

I know it was mentioned that money for technology isn't the problem but it can't hurt either. I doubt the sole banner in the header is that big of a money grabber...

edit/ and i also agree that there is a load of rubbish forums on here which serve little purpose.. mustard, the chuck norris forum...all that stuff.

oscarBravo

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

I haven't read the entire thread...

There's your first mistake, right there.

Rollo Tamasi

why is that a mistake?

is this thread half full of jibberish?

i'm guessing it's a load of members who think they're cool because they have a thousand + posts giving **** to the OP for raising a question that a lot of members are curious about?

just a guess like?

oscarBravo

Crazy idea: read the whole thread.

Diogenes

Have any of the Admins considered the idea of reversing the polaristan of the tacion flow?

Just asking? As I understand it the Mods of Boards run this thing on a shoe string and technical expertise. Wih my limited expertise and the Admins response you may as well suggest that they defrag the harddrives as a coherent stragerry. They have a plan. They run boards as a hobby. They need time to get it working. Jesus anyone complaining about boards.ie speed may as well be complaining about the fact that your local pirate radio station isn't running 24/7 so it is failing to provide a service to you.

**** me about half a decade ago a bunch of people decided for ****s and giggles to run a BBS. This proved to me fantastically successful but not profitable. They added subforum after subforum and the site grew and grew and then grew far beyond their basic expectation. But they kept at it adding to ram and hardrive space as and when they could, and then when needed getting advertising revenue.

Now they're at the point that they need to get it sorted. These people make barely a few quid from this, yet they get abuse for doing a job that they do for gratias is mind boggling.

You don't like boards sod off to p45.net or any other forum, otherwise accept that boards is good people making the best out of limited resources.

aidan_walsh

Have any of the Admins considered the idea of reversing the polaristan of the tacion flow?

They've even tried bouncing it off the main deflector dish, but no good...