so, i had a friend look over my pligg install and he knows quite a bit about sql (too much for his own good) - at first he was concerned about the number of queries and then realized that the template is not being cached (using yget on my site, running 9.1) and so all of these little hacks and tweaks (gzip et al) are in vain without real template caching...the entire thing is being redrawn each and every time a visitor moves around...(confirmed by ash:
http://pligg.com/forum/showthread.php?p=22738)
in one scenario, the default pligg installation also leaves mysql persisten connection on (as 'true') - this means that one user could be sitting there for a few minutes using the 'capacity' of what 100+ users should be using...in turn, this puts every default install at risk of pissing off hosting providers if the sites actually get busy (most pliggs seem to have a couple of users, but a few will hit the thousands or more, eventually)...because most don't even understand how to edit db.php to set to 'false' it's a problem - but also setting to false makes the site even slower, redrawing templates AND running each query anew....but it should be downloaded with setting as 'false' so as to not push pligg users toward confrontations with hosting providers!!!
personally, if i knew enough about the underlying architecture, i'd be mad mad focused and only focused on caching templates IF you do not want to drop smarty templating...
...and the number of dbase calls is outrageous as wellof - for example, take a look at dragonflycms.com - a variation on nuke - it's extremely robust, and uses smarty (yes!) but only has 18 dbase calls from the home page, about 30ish for forums..versus 180ish for pligg showing a generic home page with like 10 stories...doesn't that trouble you a bit? i've done a few hacks via these forums to get those calls down to about 120, but that's still ridiculous, plus without caching there's no way to really effect performance and speed as a 'standard' (yes, some pliggs run super fast, particularly with awesome hosts, dedicated servers, etc)
has anybody attempted to hard code elements of layout to remove smarty and in turn enable caching, or cache with smarty, or reduce total queries or anything like that?
i'm only worried because i'm watching all of these people waste time modifying templates, removing little 4k images and waiting for the performance gains, or enabling gzip and waiting some more...without caching and reduced calls, the default will just always crawl for the majority of users.
please don't misunderstand me either - i love what pligg is doing, and i love the app (using it myself) - just wondering if it will ever be useful for a site that has any semblance of real traffic....