Some time ago we posted about how to install XDebug and KCacheGrind. I think anyone serious about PHP performance should keep those tools handy and in regular use. And it just so happens they helped us uncover a huge performance … Continue reading
As a consultancy we’ve encountered all kinds of code. Often times we inherit code from other teams, in which case we always make it a priority to review its style, structure, how it’s been deployed, if any frameworks were used, … Continue reading
NetBeans can be slow, very slow. After trying out everything on the NetBeans Performance FAQ to no avail, I finally reached the point where I decided to switch to another IDE instead of trying to manage NetBeans’ performance problems. Before … Continue reading
A client recently reached out in regard to a reproducible performance problem on their WordPress site. The use case and conditions were as follows: Performance was fine until a change happened to the wp_posts or wp_term_relationships tables (i.e. when a … Continue reading
Here’s another example of why it’s always a good idea to refer to execution plans and test different query options. Here’s a query I was running as part of some manual data work: select ua.* from vn_user_achievements ua where exists … Continue reading
After doing a fresh Ubuntu 10.10 install I spent some time re-installing some much relied on dev tools, 2 of which are XDebug and KCacheGrind. Their purpose is to add enhanced debugging and profiling capabilities to any dev environment. If … Continue reading
This won’t uncover anything most people familiar with server latency already know: latency increases as the distance to a given server increases. This post isn’t much more than that, except that there are numbers and data attached to supplement that … Continue reading
I was recently asked about whether column order matters in composite indexes, and if so, to what extent. I recall this being the case when working with SQL Server 2000 and 2005, so I became curious how MySQL handled scenarios … Continue reading
If you’re familiar with Steve Souders, or use tools like YSlow or PageSpeed to optimize your sites, you probably already know that enabling compression for your web sites is a proven way to speed up response times. Even though that’s … Continue reading
