[..]
> I find this somewhat naive. You are finding fault in him approximating
> a network architecture that is more appropriate for the application?

In a commercial environment one should build an infrastructure and incorporate an architecture that most effectively support the application.

> Would you find the same fault in someone who has decided to use a
> dual-processor server instead of a server with one "really beefy"
> processor (you might consider the analogy invalid, but parallel
> processing is very similar to what we're talking about here)?

That would depend. The original post made reference to manipulating XML using XSLT on the client rather than the server in order to lower the load on the server. I would be interested to know why and how the conclusion was drawn that the server would not be able to cope with the load.

> I would suspect not.

I wouldn't know what exactly a "really beefy" processor would be in real terms; but the decision to use parallel processors versus a single, higher specification processor would depend on the application being run on the box. Without further qualification it would be impossible to comment.

> In fact, there are many applications on the Web which have
> more-than-normal processing on the client in the forms of java
> applets, activex controls, and even javascript.

The reason these technologies are used is [usually] not to reduce the load on the server, thus their mention is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Regards

Chris Marsh