Posted by ECRIA Public Mail Buffer on 08/17/05 20:23

Some tasks are simply not suited for development in the form of web
applications. However, with all due respect it is much more likely that you
have not designed your application properly. For example, data lookup is not
a procedure that is limited by the processing speed of PHP; it's the
responsibility of the database (that's what SQL is for).

You may want to read "Advanced PHP Programming" by George Schlossnagle and
"High Performance MySQL" by Jeremy D. Zawodny & Derek J. Balling, both
available at B&N & online at Amazon.com. They deal with optimization
techniques, programming methods and database architecture/query design for
enterprise-level applications. If this is deep water for you, it may be time
to sub-contract. A large web development project is almost guaranteed to
require at least one expert who has experience developing systems on the
same scale.

PHP and MySQL are quite capable of providing a platform for scalable
on-demand high-volume applications, with the right hosting infrastructure,
optimizers and (crucially) forward-thinking application design.

Good luck,

ECRIA
http://www.ecria.com

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