[geeks] forking stupid interpreters

[Mike Meredith]

On Sunday 24 March 2002 20:54, you wrote:
> [ On Sunday, March 24, 2002 at 08:40:09 (+0000), Mike Meredith wrote:
> ]
>
> > Subject: Re: [geeks] thoughts on SMTP
> >
> > It's forking things off that kills performance --- not running an
> > interpreted language.
>
> Ah, no, it's forking the stupid language stupid interpreter that
> kills performance -- normal unix programs fork just fine
> thankyouverymuch!  :-)

You've totally missed my point ... an interpreter isn't a problem if it 
is embedded, or running as a daemon process. As my example of running a 
Perl-based adzapper on a web cache illustrated.

Forking *can* be a problem if you try forking at a high rate ... why 
else do MTA's have a queue only mode when the load average gets too 
high ? (if you don't understand, find yourself a loaded E450 running an 
untuned MTA and swamp it with mail)