Re: Re: Quick User Existance Check?

The general tone of responses is based on an educated guess of real needs judging from past experience with other people asking those questions.

As for the past experience with people trying to speed things up, well the following essay on code tuning is exactly accurate. Yes, there are times that you need to tune code. I have been there, and done that. But most of the people who think they need that are just shooting themselves in the foot. What they really need to do is learn to write clearer code, get it working, and then be able to step back and do the really valuable kinds of analysis on the overall project.

The image that comes to mind is someone who is so focussed on the need to be moving really fast that they are tripping over their own two feet. Get them to focus on effective walking motions, and they get farther immediately, plus are going to be in a better position to learn how to run later...

Comment on Re: Re: Quick User Existance Check?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Re: Quick User Existance Check? by waswas-fng (Curate) on Jun 27, 2003 at 20:21 UTC
I can see your point Tilly, I guess I did not even think about that viewpoint when I posted because I have dealt with the exact same speed issue the person was posting about before. Where a batch check of many names to a silly large /etc/passwd file was taking way to long using `getpwnam()`. In my instance it changed my average runtime from 14 minutes down to <15 seconds to use my method instead of `getpwnam()` BTW, it is great having you back! I missed your insightful posts while you were kept from us. -Waswas	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Quick User Existance Check? by tilly (Archbishop) on Jun 27, 2003 at 20:32 UTC
From the description it could well be a justified speedup to look for. People tend to have knee-jerk responses, and sometimes those responses are inappropriate. With 500,000 users on the system, scanning it each time could quickly become prohibitive. About being back. I also like being back. Interacting here forces me to constantly rethink what I think I know, and exposes me to things that I didn't know. This is very valuable for me. (Not to mention fun!) Plus there are all of the people I know and enjoy talking to...	[reply]