[wp-hackers] Correct 404 Behavior?

[Computer Guru]

On 9/16/07, Jeremy Visser <jeremy.visser at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Computer Guru wrote:
> > Anyway, you'd have to check if that permalink *used* to exist and if
> > it does but isn't there now send a 410.
>
> This is one belief I have had for a _long_ time, but never bothered to
> say anything about it. I think that WordPress should retain a list of
> past permalinks and return 410s for pages that are gone.
>
> Also, I dislike the idea of a file-based web server. e.g. you request
> /fruit/apple.html, which points to the server's DocumentRoot +
> /fruit/apple.html. I wish web servers worked with a database for the
> URLs (e.g. you could create an entry for /fruit/apple, then point it to
> /home/jeremy/docs/apple.html), which would be more apt for handling
> 410s. I'm not aware of any web servers which behave like that -- the
> closest thing I can think of is using a PHP script to do the job, and
> using mod_rewrite to point all URLs to the script.
>
That's something I've considered before, and even started working on with a
couple of other guys... Unfortunately, the problem is always that RMDBs are
too damn slow for constant load like that, especially when you realize that
the same server that could handle 2000 req/sec can't even handle 10 anymore.

What needs to be implemented (and i have no idea why it hasn't been done
yet...) is a Server OS with a RMDB built into the kernel. If that was there,
you could do all kinds of cool voodoo :P


-- 
Computer Guru
Director,
NeoSmart Technologies
http://neosmart.net/blog/