The whole thing shows that if you have a basic contempt for the idea of government — that you wanted it to be small enough to “get it in the bathtub and drown it” — then it will come back at with you with failure that threatens the very basis of orderly life itself. California’s getting a lesson in that.
— Guy Rundle in Crikey: What’s happened to the once great state of California?
http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 content H
Yesterday we adopted a beautiful, 2½ month-old Border Collie puppy. He was the more curious and attentive of two brothers, though it was still a difficult choice! He is heart-stoppingly cute, has that adorable “new puppy” smell, soft and fluffy long fur, and is already beginning to figure out the inscrutable noises of the silly humans. Po seems to be very comfortable at his new home:
Already happy with nginx in front of Apache for a number of sites, I decided it was time to start testing nginx/fastcgi on my personal server (the serial crash test dummy of my web operations). The only problem: I have yet to find a sensible method of grabbing useful runtime information from the PHP fastcgi process itself, and if you can’t sensibly watch it, you can’t sensibly deploy it.
So for now, instead of watching the PHP fastcgi process directly, I’m tracking its performance and usage from nginx’s perspective. You can log all kinds of data about upstream performance with nginx:
log_format upstream '$remote_addr - - [$time_local] "$request" $status '
'upstream $upstream_response_time request $request_time '
'[for $host via $upstream_addr]';
Then we log to a central upstream.log file from every location block which includes a fastcgi_pass parameter. For example:
location ~ \.php$ {
include fastcgi_params;
access_log /var/log/nginx/upstream.log upstream;
fastcgi_pass fcgi_php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $wordpress_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
Now we know how many requests the PHP fastcgi process is handling, and how quickly it’s doing so. collectd’s tail plugin can watch this log file…
<Plugin tail>
<File "/var/log/nginx/upstream.log">
Instance "nginx"
<Match>
Regex ".*"
DSType "CounterInc"
Type counter
Instance "requests"
</Match>
<Match>
Regex " upstream ([0-9.]*) "
DSType GaugeAverage
Type delay
Instance "upstream"
</Match>
</File>
</Plugin>
… and turn it into something readable. First, the number of requests per second (which I only started watching at 14:30 this afternoon), then the delay for each request:
(Relatively boring statistics here, as it’s only monitoring the dynamic processing of my personal sites.)
Combining nginx’s flexible logging and collectd’s tail plugin makes it pretty easy to watch the usage and performance of whatever you’re running behind nginx, even if you can’t instrument the application itself.
… and thus far, I’m pretty happy with the performance, reliability and resource usage of nginx in front of PHP in fastcgi mode. 
Some companies lack “open source table manners”. Often they don’t know what is expected. Like my cat bringing dead mice to the dinner table.
— Brian Aker, with some tiny Twitter wisdom
http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 contentstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 author typehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 iddatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ id_hash typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ comments typeWelcoming Po to the familyhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ titleslash_comments title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583The whole thing shows that if you have a basic contempt for the idea of government — that you wanted it to be small enough to “get it in the bathtub and drown it” — then it will come back at with you with failure that threatens the very basis of orderly life itself. California’s getting a lesson in [...]http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 summaryhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/23/qotd-guy-rundle-2/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 wfw_commentrss2009 7 23 4 1 1 3 204 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 link typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 order typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 slash_comments type < ~wD= S& N T s h A ( y * 5 0 ib6/wpb[N51sy3fdY2^W stringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ slash_comments typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 id typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 content type2009 6 3 8 36 23 2 154 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 updatedJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 authorhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 id
… and apparently available on Zazzle.
http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 contentdatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 author typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05http://bethesignal.org/feed/url2009 7 23 4 1 28 3 204 0url_modifiedstringurl_etag typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 author typeslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528stringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 id_hash typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 slash_comments typeJust mentioned it in the comments of my previous post, but it’s worth a more public reminder… That’s what I would describe as “the hopes and dreams of a generation” (of Software Freedom lovers), and is the result of fantastic product definition, branding, genuine user excitement, years of incredible — and largely unsung — work of thousands of Debian developers [...]http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ wfw_commentrss typedatehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ date typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ link type1http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ orderhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 id type2009 6 3 8 36 23 2 154 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 updatedJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 authorstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 author typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ idA single scene completely redeems one of the worst films of all time…
Click here to view the embedded video.
So much awesome.
http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ contentdatehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 order typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 comments typeslash_comments title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577stringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 id_hash typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 slash_comments typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ author typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 content type
(This stupid joke, and the linked cartoon which inspired it, will be difficult for international readers to understand. It might make slightly more sense if you replace “Andrew Bolt” with “Rush Limbaugh” as you read it, while noting that a true analogue to Limbaugh simply doesn’t exist in the Australian commentariat. Despite having our own breed of hypocritical right-wing crazies, I think it will be a long time coming before Australians would accept someone even remotely as ignorant and offensive as Limbaugh in our public conversation.)
A single scene completely redeems one of the worst films of all time… So much awesome.http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ summary n j q.NG [ A U m a 5 . z S L d ! $ ]V2|IBkd=1mi>7Z' qj stringurl_status type301url_statusstringsubtitle typewhere we're going, we don't need roads...subtitlestringlastbuilddate typeThu, 23 Jul 2009 04:01:28 +0000lastbuilddatestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 wfw_commentrss typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/08/wordpress-and-drizzle/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 wfw_commentrssdatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 date type2009 7 7 19 15 39 1 188 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 hidden typeyeshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 hiddenstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 slash_comments type12http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 slash_commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 content typek < http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 contentstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 author typeJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 authorstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 id_hash type0853163ff4c2a64e9f824a52ad9ff2f7http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 id_hashstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 wfw_commentrss typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/truly-css-is-awesome/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 wfw_commentrssdatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 date type2009 6 13 8 0 6 5 164 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 hidden typeyeshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 hiddenstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 slash_comments type7http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 slash_commentsslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/stringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ summary typeA single scene completely redeems one of the worst films of all time… So much awesome.http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ link typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ linkstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ order type2http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ orderstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 id typehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 iddatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 updated type2009 7 16 19 28 30 3 197 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 updatedstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 content typek q http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 contentstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 author typeJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 authorstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ wfw_commentrss typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/feed/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ wfw_commentrssdatehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ date type2009 5 19 11 13 3 1 139 0http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ hidden typeyeshttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ hiddenstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ slash_comments type16http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ slash_commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 comments typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/23/qotd-guy-rundle-2/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 title typeQotD: Guy Rundlehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 title T {\UN! v R 7 O H [ T ! U N ' HDh;4 {a3zNG 2009 8 13 16 5 7 3 225 0updatedstringsy_updateperiod typestringgenerator_name typestringgenerator typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 id typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 content type2009 7 7 19 15 39 1 188 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 updatedstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 summary typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/how-do-dogs-drink-water/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 wfw_commentrss2009 6 13 9 29 21 5 164 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 datehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/how-do-dogs-drink-water/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 linkstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 order typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 comments typece2f765941fe1a3ecc4a70dbc55a7c43http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ id_hashGoogle Distro Trends, 2009/04/23http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ titleyeshttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ hidden53http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ slash_commentsk http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 contentstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 id typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 content type2009 6 13 8 0 6 5 164 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 updatedJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ authorSome companies lack “open source table manners”. Often they don’t know what is expected. Like my cat bringing dead mice to the dinner table. — Brian Aker, with some tiny Twitter wisdomhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 wfw_commentrss typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 id_hash typedatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 date typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 link typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 slash_comments typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 summary typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/22/watching-nginx-upstreams-with-collectd/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 wfw_commentrss2009 7 22 11 22 12 2 203 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 datehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/22/watching-nginx-upstreams-with-collectd/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 linkstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 order typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 comments typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ id typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ content type2009 5 19 11 13 3 1 139 0http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ updatedhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 iddatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 author type R J! aZ w V / 9 o h > 7 N G w I < \W`Y/( qih]ZOH53*' stringconfigured_url typefilterenlanguage1sy_updatefrequencystringtitle type10next_orderexclude2ad7afcf74ad5a41c91a84c78544b3dchttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 id_hashhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/08/wordpress-and-drizzle/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 id type2009 6 13 9 29 21 5 164 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 updatedhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ iddatehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ updated typeslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518(This stupid joke, and the linked cartoon which inspired it, will be difficult for international readers to understand. It might make slightly more sense if you replace “Andrew Bolt” with “Rush Limbaugh” as you read it, while noting that a true analogue to Limbaugh simply doesn’t exist in the Australian commentariat. Despite having our own [...]http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 summaryhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/03/barack-obama-celebrates-national-andrew-bolt-is-a-dickhead-day/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 wfw_commentrss2009 6 3 8 36 23 2 154 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 link typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 order typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 slash_comments type6cbcffa481997f9f88dac575aacc4c90http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 id_hashhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/truly-css-is-awesome/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ id_hash typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ comments type“I loved you in Wall Street!”http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ titlestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 content typeJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 authorstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 id type2009 7 22 11 22 12 2 203 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 updated563820f207a813ce1921aabba3595477http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ id_hashhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 summary typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 wfw_commentrss typedatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 date typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/23/qotd-guy-rundle-2/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 link10http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 order4http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 slash_comments V ib p- ] V - ( ^ \ 6 2 | a : { , % 2d] YR v-unG, }_P2" dateupdated typehourlysy_updateperiodhttp://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4generator_namehttp://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4generatorhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 idk http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 contentdatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 updated typeWow, this sure is counter-intuitive. Watching Po the other day, I was pondering more efficient ways for a dog to drink water. I mean, why doesn’t he just hold his breath, stick his snout in the bowl and suck? OK, it might take a leap of faith for a dog to do that due to [...]http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 wfw_commentrss typedatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 date typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 link type6http://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 orderhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/how-do-dogs-drink-water/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1528 commentsslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/stringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ id_hash typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ title typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ slash_comments typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 content typehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 id
… and apparently available on Zazzle.
http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 contentdatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ author typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 summary typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/17/qotd-brian-aker/feed/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 wfw_commentrsse1b6b5cb7c2268cb6afd2f9eb8da0bcdhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 id_hash2009 7 16 19 28 30 3 197 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 datehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/17/qotd-brian-aker/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 linkQotD: Brian Akerhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 titleyeshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 hidden1http://bethesignal.org/?p=1566 slash_commentsAlready happy with nginx in front of Apache for a number of sites, I decided it was time to start testing nginx/fastcgi on my personal server (the serial crash test dummy of my web operations). The only problem: I have yet to find a sensible method of grabbing useful runtime information from the PHP fastcgi [...]http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 wfw_commentrss typedatehttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 date typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 link type9http://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 orderhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/07/22/watching-nginx-upstreams-with-collectd/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1577 commentshttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ idk H http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ contentdatehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ updated typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 id type2009 7 23 4 1 1 3 204 0http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 updatedJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 authorJust mentioned it in the comments of my previous post, but it’s worth a more public reminder…
That’s what I would describe as “the hopes and dreams of a generation” (of Software Freedom lovers), and is the result of fantastic product definition, branding, genuine user excitement, years of incredible — and largely unsung — work of thousands of Debian developers (not to mention all the upstreams)… and a pretty substantial X factor. 
Update: Whenever I talk about this chart in presentations, I always follow up with another chart which puts that incredible rising line in context: Ubuntu vs. Firefox. Interestingly, that chart is looking far less impressive today than it was last year. Which is great news… The rise and rise of Ubuntu is catching up to the star power of Firefox! Wow!
Wow, this sure is counter-intuitive. Watching Po the other day, I was pondering more efficient ways for a dog to drink water. I mean, why doesn’t he just hold his breath, stick his snout in the bowl and suck? OK, it might take a leap of faith for a dog to do that due to inconvenient nostril placement.
Meanwhile, I’ve always assumed that dogs and cats scooped up the water in their tongue like a bucket. Turns out that was right, albeit backwards… in the slow-mo video below, you can see that dogs actually use the back of their tongue as a scoop, not the front (which is the way I would do it)!
Click here to view the embedded video.
Update: After some encouragement in the comments, Dusty sent along a video of Sarah (a six month old Gordon Setter) drinking through her snout like a straw! It may not be slow motion, but you can still clearly see her unusual approach to the problem towards the end of the video. Check it out:
Click here to view the embedded video.
So, for amusement, education and a desire to put Drizzle through its paces with a real-world application, I built a Drizzle database adapter for WordPress.
Rather than completely dumping the native wpdb class (as most WordPress database adapters appear to do), I have subclassed it, replacing only the methods which use mysql_ functions.
This way, it’s easier to maintain, and more likely to work with plugins and future versions of WordPress. I have also written a cheesy, retroactive test suite for wpdb… I haven’t done a lot of TDD, so I have no idea if it’s any good, but it was helpful during development.
Because Drizzle has removed column types and various bits of syntax that WordPress (and heaps of plugins) rely on, the adapter does a tiny bit of query munging along the way. For now, the only filters required are for CREATE, ALTER and friends.
Here’s a screenshot of WordPress running on Drizzle. Note that in the sidebar, I’m showing off two plugins which maintain their own tables — WP-PostRatings and Twitter Tools.
To test this bad boy out — because it’s absolutely not for production blogs! — you’ll need the Drizzle server (and its dependencies, naturally), the Drizzle PHP extension, WordPress 2.8 and my adapter. Note that I have yet to test it with WordPress MU, but it shouldn’t require many changes if it doesn’t work already.
If you use Ubuntu and want an easier time of it, you can get almost everything from the following PPAs. The Drizzle server isn’t packaged, but it’s incredibly easy to build and changes so quickly that you’ll probably find you want to keep it up to date from the source anyway.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/drizzle-developers/ppa/ubuntu hardy main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jdub/devel/ubuntu hardy main
(I have only built my packages for Ubuntu 8.04, hardy, but you can always just grab the source packages and build them for whatever you’re using.)
Make sure you install the database adapter before you go through the WordPress install process. In every other respect, your test blog should operate in a completely unsurprising manner. Except when Drizzle crashes… but that’s precisely why you’re testing it, right?
I am incredibly impressed with the Drizzle project. It’s a living case study of Open Source innovation and project renewal.
In response to what could be regarded as the unadventurous maturity of the MySQL project, the Drizzle developers have not simply chosen a new goal and forked the code — they have crafted a mission based on an insightful reading of current and future needs, questioned everything about MySQL without throwing away what they had learned, and thoroughly redefined their expec tations and model for community collaboration.
It’s the perfect application of Software Freedom’s most functional of permissions: the freedom to fork. Like other forks built on both technical and social foundations — such as Firefox and, coincidentally, WordPress — I think it will eclipse its predecessor. Yes, even the mighty MySQL.
I hope that what the Drizzle developers have done will teach and inspire other projects to look beyond their own horizon.
Here’s a rocktastic presentation by Brian Aker, “Drizzle: Rethinking MySQL for the Web”, from the recent Open Source Bridge conference:
Click here to view the embedded video.
sa\W@ http://bethesignal.orglinknulllast_updated typeslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 , B jc> y r # h b [ < u Z S . , aTSIB stringlink typelast_updatedSo, for amusement, education and a desire to put Drizzle through its paces with a real-world application, I built a Drizzle database adapter for WordPress. Rather than completely dumping the native wpdb class (as most WordPress database adapters appear to do), I have subclassed it, replacing only the methods which use mysql_ functions. This way, it’s easier [...]http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 summarystringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 link type7http://bethesignal.org/?p=1538 orderstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ content typeJeff Waughhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/04/23/google-distro-trends-20090423/ authorhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/03/barack-obama-celebrates-national-andrew-bolt-is-a-dickhead-day/#commentshttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 commentsstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1518 title typeslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523stringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 summary typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/06/13/truly-css-is-awesome/http://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 linkstringhttp://bethesignal.org/?p=1523 order typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/feed/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ wfw_commentrss2009 5 3 11 58 14 6 123 0http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ datestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ hidden typestringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/03/i-loved-you-in-wall-street/ slash_comments typeslash_comments hidden title author updated comments order content link date id_hash wfw_commentrss summary idhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/stringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ summary typehttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/http://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ linkstringhttp://bethesignal.org/blog/2009/05/19/welcoming-po-to-the-family/ order typeddcfe5f22c1cde2b27f03e6e4e28f002http://bethesignal.org/?p=1583 id_hash