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Kicking off some posts about various performance challenges we've fixed.

N Factorial

During a code review for a site we were taking over, I found this little gem:

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What can you do about this page being so slow? That's a question we've been asked by half a dozen customers in the past 6 months, and as it turns out, we can do quite a lot.

We've been getting several inquiries related to document management in Drupal, and occasionally about OpenAtrium, a Drupal distribution we've used as a base for several projects that needed strong group collaboration functionality.

Everybody is writing about Heartbleed this week. The reason? It probably affects more people than any other vulnerability we've ever seen. If you ever log into any web site, anywhere, your password might be revealed -- and that is just the start.

"My budget is really tight, can you get the project started and show me what to do to finish it?" -- Yet another request from several different prospective customers.

It goes something like this:

(Client): I want to add a shopping cart to my site. I heard that xyz cart is free, can you add that for me?

(Developer): Sure! That looks easy.

There's a little controversy in the Drupal world, a fork by Nathan Haug, aka QuickSketch. Last week he tweeted:

Software is expensive because it is irrational and difficult to build. More than 70 years of mostly-failed software projects evidence this fact. Face it, and your chances for success will dramatically improve.

Results. Return On Investment. Value. How do you measure these things in a website? There's one thing you can easily measure -- cost. Or at least the amount you actually spend to build and maintain a site.

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