Mike Raiford wrote:
> OEMs are just distributors of the software, though.

Yes? And?

You probably think you're CBS's customer, too.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Darren New wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>> OEMs are just distributors of the software, though.
> 
> Yes? And?
> 
> You probably think you're CBS's customer, too.
> 

No. CBS's customers are the advertisers ...

MS doesn't write specifically for the hardware vendors. Unless you 
consider corporations as being their biggest customers, but they're just 
a conglomeration of end users.

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"Mike Raiford" <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:4880e65d$1@news.povray.org...

> Unless you
> consider corporations as being their biggest customers, but they're just
> a conglomeration of end users.

But end users without a say in what their company buys and they use. Can
they be called customers since they did not spend their own money on a
product?

Corperates are MS's largest clients. Single users who purchase their
software (like you or I) are small fry to them.

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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote
> And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:25:55 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>
> did spake, saying:

> > http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/That-Wouldve-Been-an-Option-Too.aspx

> "a developer had to step in and restart the site to release resources"
>
> Wouldn't that suggest that bunging some more memory in would only increase
> the time it took to fill up?

No. If there was a leak, they wouldn't have reduced the memory footprint by
50%.

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somebody wrote:
> No. If there was a leak, they wouldn't have reduced the memory footprint by
> 50%.

Clearly the article *does* say they got rid of leaks and inefficiencies 
both. :-)   Some leaks just aren't big enough to worry about, tho.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4880f9f3$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:

> > No. If there was a leak, they wouldn't have reduced the memory footprint
by
> > 50%.

> Clearly the article *does* say they got rid of leaks and inefficiencies
> both. :-)

That's not clear to me. Note that "unreleased resources" ...etc need not be
leaks.

It just doesn't make sense to me to be able to claim a 50% reduction in
memory in a leaky application, unless they halved the leaks as well instead
of eliminating them <g>

> Some leaks just aren't big enough to worry about, tho.

True, typically in interactive applications where user interaction
limitation sets an upper bound on leak rate.

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somebody wrote:
> That's not clear to me. Note that "unreleased resources" ...etc need not be
> leaks.

Possibly not. Possibly they were released but not as early as they 
should have been.

> It just doesn't make sense to me to be able to claim a 50% reduction in
> memory in a leaky application, unless they halved the leaks as well instead
> of eliminating them <g>

Yeah. In any case, it's obvious that it's not going to be resolved on 
the basis of *that* article. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:26:33 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Wouldn't that suggest that bunging some more memory in would only  
>> increase the time it took to fill up?
>
> "Had to restart the system to free up resources" could mean "we're  
> thrashing because we have 5000 connections open to the server at once,  
> because they're not closing, because we're thrashing." For example.

True, but that still may be simply postponing the problem; the article  
mentions the increasing need for restarting.

> But sure, if there's a leak, you'll eventually fill up memory. If 2 gig  
> changes it from being "restart the server once every day" to "restart  
> the server more rarely than we upgrade the software anyway", it's a win.

Indeed from a business perspective if buying more memory is cheaper then  
fixing the underlying problems then that's the 'best' solution. I just  
wouldn't place this article in the pure WTF category.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Darren New wrote:
> 
> But sure, if there's a leak, you'll eventually fill up memory. If 2 gig 
> changes it from being "restart the server once every day" to "restart 
> the server more rarely than we upgrade the software anyway", it's a win.
> 

I actually know a system (actually, a 4-numbered set of those systems), 
which is being reboot scheduledly every week because of a memory leak. 
It's rare enough (and the actually needed schedule would be once in two 
weeks oslt), so it's "ok".

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:25:55 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 
> did spake, saying:
> 
>> http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/That-Wouldve-Been-an-Option-Too.aspx
> 
> "a developer had to step in and restart the site to release resources"
> 
> Wouldn't that suggest that bunging some more memory in would only 
> increase the time it took to fill up?
> 


When I worked for GM a developer had to access a system to 'clean out 
the database' about every month or so so that it wouldn't crash.  They 
had a nice maintenance contract going.....



Tom

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