Good Advice – Don’t let performance overly influence design

Matthew Wilson has some good advice in this thread on [A good performance architecture ?][1].

• Don’t worry too much about performance in your design phase. Dont ignore it of couse. Implement a smart design and it will alow for the changes that may ha
  ve to be made for performance.
  

Based on my experiences, I tend to agree. There are often too many variables still outstanding during the design phase that would prevent any non-high lev
el performance choices from being made. It’s difficult to tune for performance unless you have intimate knowledge of the various components and their requ
irements. This type of knowledge isn’t typically available during the design phase of many projects. Try and understand the limitations of the particular
technology you’re considering, but don’t allow the limitations to force you into making silly design decisions.

Design and implement a solid flexible architecture (easier said than done). Implement iteratively where possible, getting feedback and usage statistics fr
om the prospective enduser(s) as you go. Use the information gathered at each iteration to further solidify your implementation, allowing you to make the
necessary changes only as required.

[1]: http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.ts
s?thread_id=26171 "A good performance architecture ?"