Plurrrr

We have a reasonable number of Linux servers, almost all of them running various versions of Ubuntu. Like pretty much everyone configuring Linux servers, we give them some swap space; the Linux kernel traditionally is much happier if it has a bit of swap space (cf), although you don't want too much. For a long time we used a separate disk partition for this (or a mirrored pair of them in a separate software RAID mirror device), although Linux distributions themselves were increasingly moving to using swap files located in the root filesystem (sometimes rather excessively large ones; the Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 installers use 4 GB even for machines with only 4 GB of RAM). We didn't have any particularly strong reasons for using a swap partition instead of a swap file; it was just what we'd started out with and what we were used to.

The major issue with getting sucked into a black-hole of “featurism” is there is no single person to blame. It probably seems easy to place all the responsibility on PMs or team leaders, but even if they are the ones adding excessive complexity to a given project, it is the role of developers and designers to speak up. It requires a team effort. Therefore, the whole team needs to be on-guard to avoid it.

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the underlying protocol of the World Wide Web. Developed by Tim Berners-Lee and his team between 1989-1991, HTTP has gone through many changes that have helped maintain its simplicity while shaping its flexibility. Keep reading to learn how HTTP evolved from a protocol designed to exchange files in a semitrusted laboratory environment into a modern internet maze that carries images and videos in high resolution and 3D.