Chris Petrilli talks about the delusions of grandeur that lots of programmers indulge in when they pick an environment based on performance concerns:

Write in whatever language you feel most comfortable and productive in. I know quite a few Python (either Zope or SkunkWeb) based websites that are running millions of hits per day. That puts them in the top 1%. Your site isn’t like that. If you think it is, you’re wrong. Maybe someday it might be, but deal with it then.

Couldn’t agree more. For almost a year, Basecamp was served well by a single, if beefy, server running web, application, and database services. We’ve just recently moved beyond that — after success was achieved. There’s no reason to gold platen a possible flop.