I/O Bound Programs

• CGI application performance is another great example of this

• When the user submits a form, the following happens:

  1. The browser sets up a TCP connection to the server

  2. It sends the form contents

  3. The server starts a new CGI process

  4. The process loads the CGI program and compiles it

  5. The CGI program runs

  6. The server gathers the CGI output and constructs a response

  7. It sends the response to the browser

  8. The connection is torn down

  9. The browser renders and displays the results

• All this typically takes a couple of seconds

• Speeding up the CGI program itself only speeds up step 5

• This probably has a minimal effect on the user's experience

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Copyright © 2003 M. J. Dominus