This is a quick post. 
The problem:
The code that we had already developed for the Merrcury Engine (the software behind the future LetMeGo.com) was responding to requests at a very slow rate. The fastest pages were taking more than four seconds to render. The most complex one’s were timing out! That is too slow. Google can respond to queries in less than 0.1 seconds.
Given our unusual architectural bet, we had major concerns with the performance we were experiencing. As a matter of fact, some of us were thinking that a major architectural overhaul was required.
The solution:
German and Lucho, with Andres’ help, worked on this issue during the first few days of the LetMeGo Immersion. They tried many things. Among the following:
- They installed performance logging tools
- They activated the use of .mo files (instead of .po) for the internationalization logic
- They activated cache at several levels
- The fixed a couple of bugs with CakePHP
- They improved the way web services are called
- They replaced a sub-system with a CakePHP plug-in.
The result:
We improved from 4 seconds down to 0.4 secs!!! (and that is via an encrypted connection). We are very happy with the performance for now, but we will work on a second performance review later on to see how low we can go. 
Thank you German, Lucho, and Andres!
Alexander Torrenegra
P.S. Sorry for the lack of details, but I’m very tired. Good night!
P.P.S. The screenshot is from the performance tests being run in German’s machine. That is why they are well below the 0.4 secs that our development server (in AWS) takes to respond.
Alexander is LetMeGo's co-founder and jefe. Here is his LetMeGo 
Congratulations team!When I first learned about the architecture LetMeGo was planning to use, I shared my concerns about performance with Alex, he was very optimistic about it and about the abilities of the team to overcome these speed issues… I am glad these issues are being worked out!A fast response is critical for a service like this.Congrats again!Juan