Technical Debt: Optimizing Preparation For Long-Term Wins
Hey guys! Today, we're diving deep into some technical debt, specifically focusing on preparation phase optimizations. Our goal? Long-term wins! We're going to break down an issue within our AreaAggregationService and how we can make some serious improvements. Let's get started!
Detailed Analysis: Cracking the Code
Let's start with the nitty-gritty. We're focusing on app/Services/Peoplecount/AreaAggregationService.php. This file is where the magic happens, but it also has a few spots where we can level up our game.
The Issue: What's the Problem?
Currently, our loadAreaRelationships() function is a bit of a resource hog. It's loading multiple hasMany / belongsTo relations, even when we only need a fraction of them for aggregation. Think of it like ordering the entire menu when you only want an appetizer – wasteful, right?
Also, the "no new data" check is happening after all the heavy lifting. This means we're burning cycles on expensive preparation steps only to find out we didn't need to do anything in the first place. It's like prepping a five-course meal and then realizing everyone already ate! Not ideal.
Finally, our cleanup logic is scattered across deleteInvalidAggregationRows(), deleteRowsWithInvalidChecksum(), and deleteRowsWithInvalidWindowSize(). This leads to multiple database roundtrips, which can really slow things down. We're essentially making several small trips instead of one big one, and that adds up.
Proposed Fix: The Game Plan
So, how do we tackle this? We've got a solid plan to make things more efficient and reduce our technical debt. Here’s the breakdown:
- Selective Eager Loading: Instead of loading everything, we'll switch to using
with()only for the relationships we actually need. We can even get more granular by using selective eager-loading based on the aggregation type. This is like ordering only the appetizer you want – much more efficient! - Early “No New Data” Check: We'll move the "no new data" check before any preparation logic. This way, if there's nothing to aggregate, we skip all the unnecessary work. Think of it as checking if everyone's already eaten before you start cooking – smart move!
- Consolidated Cleanup: We'll merge our cleanup methods into a single, streamlined “pre-aggregation cleanup” method. This reduces the number of database calls and keeps things tidy. It’s like making one big trip instead of several small ones – much faster and more organized.
Diving Deeper: The Power of Selective Eager Loading
Let's zoom in on the first part of our plan: selective eager loading. This is a crucial optimization technique, and understanding it can make a huge difference in your application's performance.
Understanding Eager Loading
First off, what is eager loading? In the context of database interactions (especially with an ORM like Eloquent in Laravel), eager loading is a strategy to load related data in a single query, rather than performing multiple queries as you access those relationships.
Imagine you have Areas and each area has many PeopleCounts. Without eager loading, if you fetch a collection of areas and then try to access the people counts for each one, you'll end up with what's known as the
