Wedge

Public area => Off-topic => The Pub => Other software => Topic started by: nend on May 14th, 2012, 06:33 AM

Title: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: nend on May 14th, 2012, 06:33 AM
Will I was visiting a old forum I have, a 1.1.x branch forum. This forum is packed with tons of data and modifications but for some reason it seems to be outperforming a newly installed 2.0.x branch with light modifications.

It has been a while though since I dabbed into a 1.1.x source code, but what has changed to make SMF 2.0.x slower than its predecessors? Is SMF 2.0.x database layer the source? :whistle:
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 14th, 2012, 08:26 AM
I *don't* think it's any (noticeably) slower...
It's usually the kind of situation where to compare, you must install two stock versions side to side and fill them with random data...
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 14th, 2012, 09:07 AM
Perceived performance may be slower because of the increased size of JavaScript and CSS files, btw.
That's why I worked hard on fixing this for Wedge...
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 14th, 2012, 12:05 PM
The DB layer won't help, certainly. But I consider the trade-off in performance for that component on its own quite acceptable for the actual increase in security it brings (considering third party modifications etc.)

The other major performance headache is post moderation. There's no way around it, it is a performance headache if it is turned on.

For all other situations, you'd need to compare them with as-close-to-identical setup, so any optimisation work you did for 1.x (e.g. turn off calendar, DB tables being InnoDB and appropriate table structure changes to convert from tinytext to varchar) would need to be mirrored in 2.x.

Also if you haven't already, switch the avatars to their own folder.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 14th, 2012, 12:36 PM
Quote from Arantor on May 14th, 2012, 12:05 PM
The DB layer won't help, certainly. But I consider the trade-off in performance for that component on its own quite acceptable for the actual increase in security it brings (considering third party modifications etc.)
I'm sure everyone will agree :)
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The other major performance headache is post moderation. There's no way around it, it is a performance headache if it is turned on.
And this is what still makes me unsure how to implement post privacy, i.e. what is basically stalling Wedge the most and caused me to post a call for help in the shape of a haiku... :lol: (Because I'm preeeeetty sure that once we get this done, Wedge is 99% ready for a public alpha...)
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For all other situations, you'd need to compare them with as-close-to-identical setup, so any optimisation work you did for 1.x (e.g. turn off calendar, DB tables being InnoDB and appropriate table structure changes to convert from tinytext to varchar) would need to be mirrored in 2.x.
I'm still sure it's mostly about perceived performance. It's best to test with PageSpeed or YSlow, and of course also enable benchmarking in SMF and check the query logs to see if generation times on the server are pretty much the same or not. If they're similar, then it's a problem with client-side caching, multiple JS/CSS files and so on. (i.e. my domain of choice 8))
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Also if you haven't already, switch the avatars to their own folder.
Here's wondering if we're already doing it by default in Wedge... If not, we probably should :P
Posted: May 14th, 2012, 12:23 PM
Quote from Nao on May 14th, 2012, 12:23 PM
And this is what still makes me unsure how to implement post privacy, i.e. what is basically stalling Wedge the most and caused me to post a call for help in the shape of a haiku... :lol: (Because I'm preeeeetty sure that once we get this done, Wedge is 99% ready for a public alpha...)
Forgot about custom groups... That one is annoying, too: I still don't know if it's realistic to keep having a list of membergroups in the member table, or if we should always join another table.

(Crap... If only I had the balls to say "let's postpone this to a later version" and actually STICK to it and make a converter later...)
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: live627 on May 15th, 2012, 03:32 AM
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Here's wondering if we're already doing it by default in Wedge
It's not done by default that I can see.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 03:39 AM
It's not done by default, and I didn't make the conversion by default (and strip out the rest of the code) because we were looking at putting it all through Aeva for potentially-multiple-avatars-per-member.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 15th, 2012, 11:40 AM
Quote from Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 03:39 AM
It's not done by default, and I didn't make the conversion by default (and strip out the rest of the code) because we were looking at putting it all through Aeva for potentially-multiple-avatars-per-member.
Another nail into my coffin, eh... :P
I'm a rock. I'm solid. I won't bow to your petty remarks eheh. It'll be for Wedge 2.0 at the earliest. I don't want to get going on another long period of trial and error, implementing something that we don't even know is going to work better...

(Or maybe I'll just do it in a couple of days when I'm bored at some point. You never know with me...)
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 03:34 PM
It wasn't meant as a dig, subtle or otherwise, it was just covering the reason why we haven't, thus far, done this.

I'm amenable to multi-avatars but it does raise a question... do we store the avatar per post or not? Having different avatars per post allows for doing things that merely having multi-avatars doesn't (and LiveJournal does it, FWIW)
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 15th, 2012, 03:45 PM
I know LJ does it, and I know it scared the hell out of me when I finally understood what was going on...
And I certainly don't like that too much.

What I'd like, with multiple avatars, would be the ability to set one avatar per board.
For instance, on noisen.com if I'm posting on my anime-related board, I'd like for my avatar to be a Saint Seiya picture. If I'm posting on the AeMe board, I'd like for it to be a more generic avatar... Etc.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 03:56 PM
Interesting... what do other people think about doing that?

(For the record, I suspect that even if you do make it like that, people are going to want per-post avatars anyway, and even then it's just a toss-up being storing it per post or per board which is complicated if you then move things between boards)
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 15th, 2012, 04:20 PM
Which is when you start to forget what avatar you wanted for a post, and you delete it, and then the post has to rely on the default avatar, etc... Sometimes, flexibility isn't exactly for the best.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 04:29 PM
Oh, sure, I just figured that it was a conversation worth having - and you KNOW we'll be asked about it.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 15th, 2012, 05:37 PM
There are plenty of conversations worth having... And even more features to implement :P
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: PantsManUK on May 15th, 2012, 05:37 PM
I can see mileage in per-board avatars (not that we'd use it), but per-post just seems like total overkill to me.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 05:49 PM
That's why I referenced LiveJournal, because that does it, and I know some people do care about such - so I wondered what the feeling was for here.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: markham on May 16th, 2012, 07:49 AM
Quote from Arantor on May 15th, 2012, 03:56 PM
Interesting... what do other people think about doing that?

(For the record, I suspect that even if you do make it like that, people are going to want per-post avatars anyway, and even then it's just a toss-up being storing it per post or per board which is complicated if you then move things between boards)
Excuse me for asking this, but isn't that simply a feature for its own sake? I can see the sense in being able to have different avatars for different boards on a user permissions basis and settable on a profile page - and indeed that might be a very desirable feature. But selectable avatars on a post by post basis? Surely that's going to make the Post page unnecessarily complicated?
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Arantor on May 16th, 2012, 02:47 PM
Nope. It's very heavily used in LiveJournal, and with the fact we have blog support, I can imagine people would want it. Which is why I'm asking about it - I'm getting the feeling it's not a feature we actually *want* but that I'm pretty sure we'll be asked about, and it isn't particularly easy to do as a plugin (though it certainly should be if multi-avatars is already an option)
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: godboko71 on May 16th, 2012, 11:31 PM
When I think of my Avatar there are very few sites I would want multiple avatars in the sense mentioned here. I could see My Avatars being an album that might be accessible via my profile. Maybe get real fancy have setting to "share" (allow others to use) the avatar. The only time I could see multiple avatars (per post) or board would be for a multi user site like Nao's site.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 17th, 2012, 12:22 AM
+1.
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: emanuele on May 18th, 2012, 12:48 AM
*cough cough* random avatar *cough cough*

/mewhistles innocently
Title: Re: Has SMF Gotten Slower?
Post by: Nao on May 18th, 2012, 07:18 AM
Avatars are a way to identify a user without having to read their name (e.g. when you're quickly scanning a page looking for someone's comments.)
Random avatars would defeat that...