[drupal-devel] Re: Alternative caching for high traffic websites

[Jeremy Andrews]

> I'm not a fan of the naming of this patch, sorry for bring it up
> only now.

You'll be happy to know that I'm not a fan of the naming either...

> To me, "loose caching" sounds like the system where we wipe the
> cache  often, while "strict caching" would be where we keep the
> cache for as  long as possible and just disable for a few users. I
> guess the current  (opposite) naming comes from the fact that
> "strict" caching ensures you  always see up-to-date pages, while
> "loose" caching doesn't guarantee  that. But there's too much
> ambiguity IMO.

I don't see the words loose and strict how you do, but still agree
that they're not the best word choices.  I guess that's proof that
there's too much ambiguity.  ;)

> I propse the following naming instead:
> - Sparse caching: where the cache is wiped often (currently called
> "strict" ?)

I don't really like the term "sparse caching".  That would suggest
that the alternative is "dense caching".  Neither really means
anything to me.  How about dropping "strict" and "sparse"
altogether, and simply having three choices:
  - no caching
  - caching
  - aggresive caching

> - Aggressive caching: where the cache is kept as long as possible 
> (currently called "loose" ?).

I do very much like the name "aggresive caching", that's a good
description.

> Sparse correctly conveys that less caching will be done and less
> hits  will result. Aggressive suggests greedy caching at a
> trade-off of having  slightly outdated pages.
> 
> I can make a patch for this if you agree...

Go for it!  :)

Cheers,
 -Jeremy