Closing Words Wishing You Overcome Performance Challenges #
Hello, I am Ni Pengfei.
Unknowingly, four months have passed, and it is time to say goodbye to our column. With many emotions and gains, I would like to share them with you here.
Looking back, when I confirmed the form of column writing with the Geek Time team, “integrating performance optimization theory through case studies” became the main theme of the entire column. In my opinion, this is the best way to learn performance optimization. It won’t make you afraid of the involvement of too many fields in performance optimization, and it can also prevent you from getting lost in individual details and losing sight of the overall goal of performance optimization.
What I didn’t expect is that preparing these case studies has consumed much more time than writing the articles. And the mainline of case studies running through the theory has extended the column from the originally planned 49 issues to 60 issues. This has caused the originally mentioned 3 months of study time to be extended to nearly 5 months. Here, I would like to thank the former senior technical expert at Alibaba, Lin Xiaobin, the senior operations engineer at Vipshop, Yang Xiangyi, and the senior backend engineer at Ctrip System Research and Development Department, Dong Guoxing, and many other technical experts for providing rich ideas for many case studies.
After the column went live, the enthusiasm and comments from the students completely exceeded my expectations. These comments include questions about knowledge blind spots that were not mentioned in the column, as well as the sharing of practical production environments by individuals.
I am happy to answer these questions because I am also grateful for the performance problems and optimization ideas that you shared in the comments. They not only enriched my perspective but also made me aware of many blind spots that I had not noticed before. Of course, whenever I see a new comment saying that a certain approach has helped solve a performance problem online, I feel extremely excited.
In fact, I believe that one of the most effective paths to technical growth is communication and collision with others. Being able to explain something to others clearly and then further integrate and comprehend from the feedback of the communication represents that you have truly mastered it, which is what I always call “internalization”. Therefore, in the column, I have always encouraged sharing and communication in the comments section.
From the discussions in the comments section, there were relatively more practices and thoughts in the first few modules. However, comments have significantly decreased from the networking module onwards, indicating that many students have fallen behind. According to the feedback from the comments, the main reason is that the last two modules involve more theoretical knowledge.
Although our column has been extended with many articles, obviously, these articles are still far from covering all the expanded knowledge points. Therefore, I have also provided additional content, recommending some basic books and reference materials needed for performance optimization.
As I mentioned at the beginning, to learn performance analysis and optimization well, establishing a global view of the overall system performance is the most core topic, and basic theory is the necessary core content of understanding the global system. So, when you find it difficult, don’t give up. Find classic books and resources, fill in the gaps in your understanding, and you will be able to overcome the challenge of performance optimization.
Finally, thank you very much for your subscription, and I hope this column can truly help you. Although the column is over, our communication will continue in the comments section. Of course, I also look forward to hearing your thoughts on studying this column and welcome you to share your gains in the comments section.
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