tl;dr:Christoffer discusses the following: (1) Use off-the-shelf. (2) Cost and reliability over features. (3) Idea to production quickly. (4) Simple data structures. (5) Reserve resources early. (6) Set maximums. (7) Make testing easy. (8) Embed performance counters.
tl;dr:In determining an appropriate request rate for HTTP scraping, Christoffer introduces the concept of system utilization. Rather than aiming for 100% utilization, he recommends a target below 40%. "Response time is a function of utilisation," allowing one to gauge system load. By comparing baseline response time when the system is idle, to loaded response time, one can estimate utilization. Christoffer provides a mathematical breakdown of this relationship, emphasizing its applicability in real-world scenarios.