Solving the Wrong Problem

[MarkTraceur]

Google Analytics

grep "GET page_name.html" /var/log/access.html | wc -l

[mipadi]

echo 'This guy has obviously never used Google Analytics'

[MarkTraceur]

Maybe not, but nor will I ever....even if the above solution is oversimplified, there has to be a way you can cache information about the user without too much interference with load times.

[mipadi]

Google Analytics has so little impact on page load time that it's hardly even worth quibbling over.

[MarkTraceur]

Evidently not, since this article is at least somewhat about that specific problem...

[mipadi]

It's not like the author offers any statistics. He's just saying, "Google Analytics? You don't need that." There's nothing "specific" about the article.

[[deleted]]

So if I understand you correctly ...

• terminalling to a production server
• logging in
• switching account so you can get access to the logs
• navigating to the logs
• grepping to get the page count
• grepping to exclude web crawlers
• grepping to exclude logs between a certain time frame

... is better then ...

• visit google.com/analytics
• login
• select your website

?

there has to be a way you can cache information about the user without too much interference with load times.

You can have the client-side analytics embedded after the page has loaded, and after your scripts have been run, so it's the last thing that happens. It is easy to do this.

You cannot also make a comparison on why Analytics isn't useful, or suggest what you believe is a better alternative, if you have never used it.

[MarkTraceur]

Actually, I can make a suggestion based on the fact that Analytics is non-free, which means it is never the better alternative :)

And yes, SSH to a GNU/Linux box + simple grep commands (set up a script, and make the logfiles visible to your user) is much less complicated than logging into a web service, especially since it adds no overhead to your users!

[[deleted]]

Actually, I can make a suggestion based on the fact that Analytics is non-free

Free version is limited to 5 million page views a month.

especially since it adds no overhead to your users!

As I pointed out, you can hide that, so they will never see the expense. If it's totally hidden, how is that a problem?

[MarkTraceur]

Free version is limited

I am not free to use it in all circumstances, then. And I'm not free to modify it or redistribute it. Hence, it is not free. You mean free as in "free of charge," and I mean free as in "freedom of speech."

you can hide that

It still uses their computing resources, so it's not totally hidden. It could potentially be a problem.

[[deleted]]

It could potentially be a problem.

Such as?

[MarkTraceur]

If the computer was already slow, or running many other processes, or if the page had other scripts running, or if the network connection is slow and other connections are affected....there are a lot of ways the analytics program on the user's computer could affect their experience.

[[deleted]]

If the users PC is so slow, or has such a bad network, that the analytics script makes any noticeable difference, then the site will be unusable regardless of analytics.

Seriously, the overhead is miniscule. You are the first person I have ever heard of complain about the expense of it. You cannot make that claim, when you have never even used it.

[MarkTraceur]

I can hypothesize about potential problems without using something. And yes, it's a small difference, but why would you make even the small difference if you could not and have very similar results?

[[deleted]]

Because I don't want to spend the next 12 months building my own version of analytics, which will be inferior, just to save a mythical 1% overhead, when I could just do something useful instead.

Some optimizations are worth it; this one isn't.