Fractional horsepower ImageMagick HTTP server?
Sunday, November 30, 2008 by Dave Winer.
I love ImageMagick, it's creating thumbs for me, night and day, day in and day out. The feed that's using the thumbnails is up and working. 
But I'm still bugged that: 1. It seems slower than it should be. 2. A window flashes every time it creates a thumbnail.
People have suggested that I use PHP to interface to ImageMagick, but no slight to PHP, I already know too many languages, I'm trying to forget some! 
Then I got a message from Phil Pearson, a guy who helped a lot in the early days of XML-RPC, and that triggered a thought -- you know what I really want -- an HTTP interface right into the ImageMagick engine. I'd accept a REST interface, but I'd be ecstatic about an XML-RPC interface. Truly.
Then you could put the engine where ever you wanted and call it from anywhere. If it started consuming the whole CPU, then fork off another one. I know you can probably do this with PHP, but I'm picky. I want my XML-over-HTTP. That's my comfort zone.
Update: I hear that Graphicsmagick is faster than Imagemagick.
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