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Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

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Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#11

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

daigoba66 wrote: post #9
TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #8

Has anyone had an experience of "gridlock" in a distributed system? Where bottlenecks cascade due to failover, etc?

"Deadlock" is the term used in concurrent processing. It can happen if the resources are distributed. I actually had the privilege of troubleshooting such an issue not too long ago: http://dba.stackexchange.com/q/73833

I wasn't talking about deadlocks - a deadlock is when no work ends up being done, whereas I was wondering about the situation where very little work ends up being done. Interesting link though!

Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#12

Post by dj-wonk »

So fun. For kicks, I just spent more than a few minutes trying to find a semi-steady equilibrium where, say 80% to 90% of cars are temporally stalled without pushing the system into total gridlock.

Just now, I got it down to only one car moving for about a quarter of the circle. Then you really have to pay attention to which car is going where. :)

Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#13

Post by bobbles »

kaji88 wrote: post #7

This is just an excellent visualization to explain a concept that is hard to imagine. Lots of difficult concepts are actually very simple once you boil them down to the fundamentals and visualize them. This has big implications for education. Many concepts like derivatives in finance, algorithmns in computer science are suprisingly simple. I remember a visualization for Paxos (a distributed consensus algorithmn) whic…

Even disregarding the topic to be taught, as a trainer / facilitator there should be a responsibility to ensure the following:

* create content that matches required outcomes for the course

* have assessments that measure leaner competency in the content

* account for different learning styles and teaching styles that may be required

* assessments and training techniques adequately account for people with learning difficulties

Almost all the lecturers I had literally sat in the classroom, faced the projector wall, and read out the word-heavy slides.

We then had a final exam worth 75%-90% of our grade.

Calling them educators is laughable.

Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#14

Post by cordite »

bobbles wrote: post #13
kaji88 wrote: post #7

This is just an excellent visualization to explain a concept that is hard to imagine. Lots of difficult concepts are actually very simple once you boil them down to the fundamentals and visualize them. This has big implications for education. Many concepts like derivatives in finance, algorithmns in computer science are suprisingly simple. I remember a visualization for Paxos (a distributed consensus algorithmn) whic…

Even disregarding the topic to be taught, as a trainer / facilitator there should be a responsibility to ensure the following: * create content that matches required outcomes for the course * have assessments that measure leaner competency in the content * account for different learning styles and teaching styles that may be required * assessments and training techniques adequately account for people with learning di…

My experience was nearly the opposite of that. Projects were half, homework 20, tests were the rest, however if your test was higher than the rest of your grade, you'd get that instead.

Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#15

Post by TheCoreh »

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #11
daigoba66 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deadlock" is the term used in concurrent processing. It can happen if the resources are distributed. I actually had the privilege of troubleshooting such an issue not too long ago: http://dba.stackexchange.com/q/73833

I wasn't talking about deadlocks - a deadlock is when no work ends up being done, whereas I was wondering about the situation where very little work ends up being done. Interesting link though!

I think this post that recently hit the front page of Hacker News could be such an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8255128

Re: Gridlock vs. Bottlenecks: A visual explanation

#17

Post by scoot »

lewis500 wrote: post #16

Glad everyone liked it. Going to make one about why buses bunch up in the future.

Not sure that needs a visual to understand, although it would be interesting to to see how you would present it, in my mind it's just another form of bottle-neck. In essence:

The lead bus has to stop for longer to pick up waiting passengers than the following bus. The less time the following bus has to stop, the closer it gets to the bus in front, so the less time for new passengers to accumulate. And so on down the chain.

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