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Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#31

Post by horsestable »

throwaway0255 wrote: post #9
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything in the world needs to be decentralized, despite what your local snake oil ICO salesman might tell you. However, there are more than enough significant institutions and processes that can and will function better with a little bit of distribution, decentralization, federation, etc properly baked in at key friction points. Building that future is a worthy and potentially lucrative cause. I know I'm speak…

I always thought distributed systems weren’t necessarily decentralized systems. Is my understanding of the terminology wrong? For example a system that uses distributed algorithms for performance improvements, or a system that is distributed by design and necessity to retain the benefits of redundancy, could be considered both centralized and distributed.

> I always thought distributed systems weren’t necessarily decentralized systems. Is my understanding of the terminology wrong?

This is correct. Distributed is not the same as decentralization.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#32

Post by tedmiston »

cevaris wrote: post #26

Don't you need to know some of Distributed Systems to consider yourself Full Stack engineer?

I think it depends on the scale of apps you build for. One can deploy a simple backend API or web app to a PaaS like Heroku or Zeit, or even a PaaS-like environment managed by another team, without knowing much about distributed. I would consider someone that can do that + build a modern front end as full stack.

IMO the average CRUD web app doesn't have the scale to have distributed systems problems. Also there are managed service versions of everything these days even when one scales up.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#33

Post by honestlyidk »

ozfive wrote: post #17
ArtWomb wrote: post #16

Yes, most certainly. Best way is to look at cloud technologies used today: AwS, Google Cloud, Azure. Cloudflare's tech blog is also very good. One growth area is cloud gaming. And I think "virtual desktops" in general may finally gain some consumer traction and scale pretty soon. Naturally this leads to an interest in Decentralized Applications as it represents an opportunity to re-build the Web. Some resources to ge…

Virtual desktops will open up opportunities of virtual phone operating systems. If you leave your phone at home by accident pick up a "shell" at the grocery store and sign into your account. When your done with your errands drop it off at the last place you were at, or some other concept. Truly portable number.

no one really wants this. This is not a game changer in purchasing any kind of device.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#35

Post by w4tson »

wyldfire wrote: post #23
sixdimensional wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Some time ago I had the ongoing debate with a colleague on what it meant to be full stack. I was under the impression that full stack meant you can do what's needed to stand up a solution at literally every OSI layer. For example, from down at the base of infrastructure, networking, hardware/cloud, servers / platforms, integration, data / database, custom and COTs applications and services to clients, UI…

> Interesting. Some time ago I had the ongoing debate with a colleague on what it meant to be full stack. Yeah, that's what makes this term a poor one IMO. It's not at all clear what it means. I've always taken it to mean "not merely Javascript."

I usually picture a JavaScript front end engineer who’s moved into backend NodeJS and picked up some DB knowledge along the way

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#36

Post by Nydhal »

ozfive wrote: post #17
ArtWomb wrote: post #16

Yes, most certainly. Best way is to look at cloud technologies used today: AwS, Google Cloud, Azure. Cloudflare's tech blog is also very good. One growth area is cloud gaming. And I think "virtual desktops" in general may finally gain some consumer traction and scale pretty soon. Naturally this leads to an interest in Decentralized Applications as it represents an opportunity to re-build the Web. Some resources to ge…

Virtual desktops will open up opportunities of virtual phone operating systems. If you leave your phone at home by accident pick up a "shell" at the grocery store and sign into your account. When your done with your errands drop it off at the last place you were at, or some other concept. Truly portable number.

Until no one actually owns phones and all you have are shared shells that can be picked up anywhere.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#37

Post by honestlyidk »

"Is it worth getting into the the subject? It would take a major commitment in time and efforts. Would it help with better career opportunities?"

I guess its an opportunity cost. What else would you be doing besides that. with 12 years of experience Id hope that you have some understanding about the subject already and arent completely in the dark. I guess with 12 years I would say it should take you no time to pick it up cause I would expect you to already be well into APIs and Oauth.

I wouldnt hurt your career opportunities. But I guess you could do something more established like get a data science degree or work with embedded systems to work with robots. Its really about what you want. But doing this is better than doing nothing.

Technically I think that a lot of people do it for a cool factor rather than for a need. You can add uncessary complexity without benefit. I dont find there to be too much deep complex ideas about it.

Basically you are performing separation of concerns across a network vs doing it by creating different class files, this allows you to offset query load to an entire set of servers which helps scaling. But your company also has to pay of another set of servers.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#38

Post by PopeDotNinja »

m00dy wrote: post #34

I did my masters in Distributed systems and I think it was definitely waste of time. I would prefer data science or something similar instead. Aside from academic positions, there is not much opportunity in the market.

> Aside from academic positions, there is not much opportunity in the market.

May I ask what you mean? I didn't formally study distributed system, but it seems like much of my daily struggle as an engineer is trying to deal with folks who are trying to implement consistent solutions in an eventually consistent world. For me, distributed computing lies beneath every non-trivial programming challenge I'm working on. Even OPs front-end JS talking to the back-end is distributed.

Re: Ask HN: Is it worth getting into distributed systems after 12 years full stack?

#39

Post by honestlyidk »

dmourati wrote: post #22

I don't believe Full Stack is a real thing. I also believe you have probably been doing distributed systems even if you think you haven't.

Well thats because you are not a full stack engineer. If you were you would understand. Its pretty simple. You have backend , you have front end , you have database. Full stack enginner has experience and implements features across all these technologies. A bit of dev ops environment knowledge is probably also good because you have to worry about the connection between all these environments in order for you to do your work.

Sure there is a quality trade off, being jack of all trades but this industry is very elastic. You can have a great frontend engineer with only 2 years experience and an ok one with 6 years experience. Time in field doesnt really gauge skill well. Its more about the challenges one takes on and the variety of problems they solve with their code.

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