Up here in Canada, most kids pass long winter days dreaming of becoming big-shot hockey players. Not me. As a kid I would sit, usually wearing my touque (one of those long woolen things everyone else in the world calls a hat), and dream of writing a nifty little application to keep track of really important things - like pizza joints. Just imagine how handy it would be to know all the different specials and prices. And, if configured properly, I could guarantee pizzas would be delivered by voluptuous Norwegian babes (another typical Canadian dream).
When the Web came along, I thought my dream might come true. I could easily develop a database of pizza joints, put it on the Web, and anyone anywhere could look at my handiwork.
I wanted this application to be fast! Speedy. Something that would let me get back to hunting fire-breathing swamp gnats (a favorite pastime) while I waited for the grub to arrive. So I designed a simple database. I tried not to use those nasty joins, trimmed the graphics to nil, and - argh! - it was still slow.
Network latency was the killer. It was painful to endure the time it took to make the connection to the Web server, have the Web server talk to the application server, the application server talk to the database, and then back to the Web server and over that straw we call an Internet pipe.
Even when the network is fast, there is still that delay while the browser talks back and forth to the server. Once the browser starts grabbing things, it's fine. Could there be a better way?
Something that responds quickly and easily.
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