From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2006-09-13T01:18:00+09:00
Subject: Re: The economics of a slow but productive Ruby

On Tue, Sep 12, 2006 at 11:51:22PM +0900, Jacob Fugal wrote:
> On 9/12/06, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov <ara.t.howard@noaa.gov> wrote:
> >On Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Jacob Fugal wrote:
> >> As others have mentioned, the scripts used by sysadmins aren't really
> >> CPU intensive nor too dependent on the host language speed. So it's a
> >> moot point. :)
> >
> >i wouldn't agree with that.  we just started a trio of ruby scripts running
> >across three machines which coordinated processing of 30 satellite years of
> >data.  they are going to peg the machines near 50% for 3-5 months.  it may 
> >not
> >be common but, where huge data sets are involved, something as trivial as
> >'unpacking and moving some data' may take a considerable amount of logic 
> >and
> >cpu.
> 
> I accept that those scripts will definitely depend on CPU. Those
> aren't the types of scripts I envision as "sysadmin scripts", though.
> In my brain (which could easily be wrong, since I've never been a
> sysadmin), programs consume resources and the sysadmin -- and his
> scripts -- are meant to manage the resources so that they *can* be
> consumed by other programs.

. . . or, put another way, sysadmin scripts are for administration of
the system, and not for churning data sets from production operations.

As far as I'm concerned, if a "sysadmin script" is eating up significant
system resources during working hours, you've either mislabeled it when
you called it a "sysadmin script" or failed to do your job as a sysadmin
properly.  As Jacob indicated, the job of the sysadmin and his/her
scripts is to manage resources, not consume them.  The sysadmin scripts
should be pretty much invisible to the people whose work is meant to be
enabled by them.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"The measure on a man's real character is what he would do
if he knew he would never be found out." - Thomas McCauley