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by youdounderstand 3499 days ago
Undoubtedly due to blocking the UI thread on I/O.
3 comments

Or an overabundance of I/O.

A friend showed me the industry-standard database app used to manage most Internet-connected second-hand bookshops (I think).

Its development decisions went something like:

"Hey, let's be sooooo awesome and update the search results live, as you type! Wow, without even a one-second delay this is SO REALTIME - like we're in 2187"

(later)

"Do we need to index the database? ...eh, nah. I don't think our custom database solution even supports indexing. Kay."

In my friend's case the store he's at has tens of thousands of books.

Cue perpetual SSD replacements by all the shops using this software

My approach to using it (when my friend and I were discussing it while I visited) was to hit Win+R to obtain a text box, type my search string, then ^C/ESC/^V it over. The database app would lock up for about 1.2 seconds per keypress.

Acceptance testing? Load testing? No, never heard of those :-/
and the slow database backend
The problem is there shouldn't be much so I/O for loading programs in the first place, but .NET loves loading an exabyte from the disk whenever any program runs.