From: "s.ross" <cwdinfo@...>
Date: 2009-04-25T05:40:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Q: Architecting large Web service download app in Ruby

On Apr 24, 2009, at 11:14 AM, James Gray wrote:

> On Apr 24, 2009, at 12:44 PM, s.ross wrote:
>
>> Is there a thread-safety issue in net/http that is causing results  
>> to be stepped on?
>
> I can't say I know for sure, but I'm doubting it.
>
>> If that's the case, does a different approach suggest itself?
>
> Well, you can fork() processes instead of Threads, if your not on  
> Windows.  This would eliminate Thread safety concerns.  You may have  
> to work out some IPC issues though if each process can't work  
> totally on its own.
>
> James Edward Gray II

Ok, I looked into it further, and there is a thread safety issue and  
it's in the xml-rpc library. If you use the call method in a thread,  
you can have the response buffer overwritten by a response in another  
thread. However, if you use call_async, then a new server connection  
and response buffer is used, thereby rendering it thread safe. And the  
performance win is astonishing!

Using a separate process with database connections either means dRb  
and some interesting IPC, BackgroundRb, or something else like that.  
I'm just pleased that I could bring the average turnaround per request  
from 65ms to 4ms (leveled at 1000 combination calls the the master and  
detail services). W00t!