On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 07:57 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
The slowness depends on how your cgi executes. If it is a perl script loading perl on every hit it will be slower. If you use php, mod_perl, fastcgi, speedycgi, java, etc. where the interpreter is loaded once for many hits you won't really see a speed difference.
As well as how well you write your program... It does seem however, that nearly every dynamically generated site that I've come across behaves like it's on a 16 MHz 486.
As far as caching goes, it shouldn't make any difference.
Many things will not cache URIs with parameters.
e.g. http://example.com/cgi?some+parameters
In the belief that they might be caching something that they really shouldn't.
Anything with basic authentication set should not be cached anyway except by the local browser.
That actually was my main concern (no local caching). Time and time again I've used incredibly slow HTTPS sites where nothing is cacheable. I can't back track (nothing loads, or the server throws a wobbly). I can only navigate via the links on the page. Tough luck if the idiot webmaster made it impossible to go back to where you need to go.