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Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

roguelazer.com

581–590 of 648 posts

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#581
post #133

This is one weird comment section. There are people attacking the author for a statement made about CoreOS, and for some hate towards Kubernetes. The key point of the article is not really being addressed here: vested interests from large companies are able to introduce huge complexity into simple, well-designed projects. While the complexity may be good for some end that said vested interest has in mind, they are al…

He is talking in absolutes (Kubernetes being the worst piece of software, etc) and trying to convince reader that "megacorporations" are the faceless evil enemy and they are making everything worse for everybody. Either you are with him or against him (servant of the evil megacorps' interest), there is no middle ground. This person is not looking for a conversation, but looking for a fight. He seems to be angry and c…

Art or not, there are quite a few contribution on the same page he hosted this post on.

Do you work with Kubernetes in a professional setting?

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#582
post #146
post #133

This is one weird comment section. There are people attacking the author for a statement made about CoreOS, and for some hate towards Kubernetes. The key point of the article is not really being addressed here: vested interests from large companies are able to introduce huge complexity into simple, well-designed projects. While the complexity may be good for some end that said vested interest has in mind, they are al…

It's a shot across the bow at the Kool-Aid which everyone here has imbibed to some extent. Of course they're going to shoot the messenger. When I clicked this thread I said out loud to my team, "oh, this should be good," and I hadn't even fathomed precisely how predictable the discussion would be. It's so far removed from any consideration that it lands something like explaining to an American that they're a subject…

[deleted]

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#583
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I like grpc. But I also think that the original author has a point: for many solo developers it's an extra dependency that they have to learn, and they get virtually no benefit from using grpc because they aren't performance-bound. They are simplicity-bound.

> they get virtually no benefit from using grpc because they aren't performance-bound. They are simplicity-bound. If you're talking latency, to this day gRPC in dynamic languages is still slower than most fast json implementations in _latency_. It is simply not correct to talk about "performance" this way. If you care about CPU allocation and not burning 70% of your CPU on JSON parsing, then sure. Most companies don'…

I think this is another reason why solo developers don't benefit from grpc the way a billion dollar company does: solo developers often aren't using languages that are optimized with grpc (eg they're using python, node, Ruby, sometimes go; they aren't using c++, Java, etc)

Obviously these aren't hard and fast rules, but Google can't just spin up 10x more data centers to run their resource intensive stuff in something other than c++ or Java. They need the efficiency in a way solo developers or small teams usually don't.

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#584
Why is gRPC considered bad?

I can understand that people who are used to HTTP based APIs will feel more comfortable being able to tap into a rich fauna of tooling for HTTP.

However personally I am not really interested in raw network APIs as long as they work. I'm interested in programming - not poking around low level stuff.

I'm interested in libraries for speaking to services. When I use services like Twilio and Stripe, I'm not interested in rolling my own. I'm not going to implement my own unless I really have to. It isn't nice to just publish an API and not have libraries for talking to them.

gRPC, at least for me, makes both initial bootstrap, development and maintainance easier.

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsers should just bite the bullet and add TypeScript support.

You can have that with WASM. But then if that's an option, I think Typescript will be the last language I migrate to, because Typescript development culture, tending as it does towards overcomplicated solutions to simple problems, is unpalatable to me. I'm drawn to the idea of using Rust over WASM as a frontend language, and I think I'd rather choose that approach to develop any browser UI where type safety is critic…

Yes, it's probably a better idea to improve WASM than add a proprietary format (TS is by Microsoft) to the open browsers. Google tried to do the same thing with Dart and it was decried about a decade ago, so now they use it for Flutter.

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can still just pick a small subset Unless you have to work with legacy code or libraries.

Then some poor soul gets to wrap the old patterns into the new patterns! But seriously, if modern C++ has one thing going for it, it has a great backwards compatibility and forward refactoring story. I'm not a huge fan of the "evolved" syntax, and I rarely use C++ anymore, but I like modern C++ substantially more than C++03, which was where I first cut my teeth as a programmer.

C++ is approaching Javascript and other modern languages with Moduless!!

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#587
At some point huge complexity are introduced to simplify a problem and solve for a gap or feature. Don't look at this as a burden, look it as a use case you don't require currently and this may not be the right tool for you to use.

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I saw it as a general lament against over-engineering. I don't think the point got lost in the super specific example... You could just as easily level similar rants against the likes of React and it's wider ecosystem, Tensorflow, Typescript (many will disagree), Docker... I'm sure others have their own bugbears. Much of this is subjective, of course. But to me, it feels like software development is trending…

I'm not sure how react fits in here. I have found it to be very simple to understand enough to be productive and upgrading to new versions has required next to no changes to our large codebase. Perhaps you mean SPA react apps which I agree are a bit more work than needed for a solo dev. Docker seems to be optimal for medium size teams. Configuring a server the old way is easier than docker for 1 server but less so fo…

React fits in because it's in the process of jumping the shark because FB needs it to. React is already hugely bloated for no discernible reason compared to Preact, but they're just going to keep bloating it with Suspense. Cf. https://crank.js.org/blog/introducing-crank

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#589
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, ok. I know when I'm getting trolled. What was that main account of yours, again?

Guy is either a really weird troll or a proper schizo. He mentioned "sympathetic ears in the government" at least three times.

Perhaps because I’m a government lobbyist and consultant formerly of FAANG with 24 years of experience trying to warn the Web industry that the exact thesis of the article is turning non-Web sectors against them? Couldn’t possibly be that, no, I have to be schizophrenic or a troll. The reason I know you don’t have schizophrenia close to you in your life is how willing you are to throw it at an anonymous commenter with a dismissive gesture toward “schizo”. You’d shut up if you knew what it’s like.

And you and “a proper response to accusing you of being a conspiracy means I’m being trolled when really I have no response” wonder why I change HN accounts like I change socks. Perhaps it’s because I hold this community in the utmost contempt precisely because of you and people like you, and I have zero interest in building a reputation among the harmful, toxic people who don’t realize how wrong they have it that I am working to excise from the conversation.

Take it or leave it. The good news for you is that you’re on the comfortable side of the argument so you will never get flagged or chastised by dang. Flagrantly accusing someone of psychological defect due to not liking their opinion is okay depending on the target and beliefs.

Re: Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it stands, the version with a gRPC API has to maintain the HTTP API. If the HTTP API has value, the cost to maintain it should self-justify, right?

The point was not value, but value for whom, or in the service of what end. Everything anyone ever did had some kind of value to someone, even murdering babies.

So if maintaining an HTTP API has insufficient value to pull enough people together to do, why are we worrying about it?
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