The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
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Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#2"Limited Programming Languages"
AWS Lambda can run all programming languages via layers.
Cloudflare Workers can run all programming languages that compile to WebAssembly.
"Vendor Lock"
True, but being locked into Kubetnetes isn't a cakewalk either.
"Performance"
Cold-starts aren't a thing for Cloudflare Workers and can be mitigated for AWS Lambda. AppSync and API Gateway don't even have them if you directly integrate with AWS services.
"You Can't Run Entire Applications"
You can and it has been done multiple times. Sure, you shouldn't blindly build everything with Lambda and API-Gateway without measuring. But many services, especially Cloudflare Workers are quite cheap.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#3"Limited Programming Languages" AWS Lambda can run all programming languages via layers. Cloudflare Workers can run all programming languages that compile to WebAssembly. "Vendor Lock" True, but being locked into Kubetnetes isn't a cakewalk either. "Performance" Cold-starts aren't a thing for Cloudflare Workers and can be mitigated for AWS Lambda. AppSync and API Gateway don't even have them if you directly integrate…
K8s can go almost anywhere any
time with fairly minimal ramp. With the frequency I am hearing about AWS billing disputes these days it's probably best to not seal the keys to your kingdom in their service.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#4> I'm not against serverless solutions per se. I promise. It's just that developers should realize – especially if they are exploring serverless models for the first time – that this technology is not a straight replacement for servers.
Ha. So the name didn't give that away then?
In all seriousness though, I think another avenue for serverless to still explore seriously is declarative application definitions rather than just functions/runtime as a service. Hasura[0] are doing this with GraphQL but I think we'll soon seen (are already seeing?) a surge in these kinds of cloud abstractions that do much more for you than a simple on-demand runtime ever could.
[0] - https://hasura.io/
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#5Serverless is the new microservice. Fortunately, for the most part it’s fallen flat on its face and for good reason - most companies don’t need it: it adds unnecessary complexity for minimal gains.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#6From an evolutionary point of view, I find serverless appealing and exciting - a romantic idea.
However, the frequent posts along the lines of "my Lambda function was buggy and now I owe Amazon three billion dollars" definitely kills the romanticism.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#7I never quite understood what problem serverless platforms were solving for companies that already deployed their own SAAS solution.
As the article says, serverless is one of many (many) ways to wrap a quantum of functionality inside an internet-accessible environment. You could have a chunk of python in a serverless setup, a small flask server in a container in k8s, as an endpoint in a monolith, etc. Each of these environments have difference performance, cost and maintenance characteristics, but I think of the star feature of serverless as the light deploy. For companies that don't have a deploy chain, that makes serverless very attractive, but if you've already invested in one it seems less compelling.
I think serverless products have a ton of potential for side projects and hobby projects. It's great that you can just type out python and access it on the internet immediately! That quality just never seemed to be what was holding back SAAS companies.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#8[deleted]
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#9The things that put me off were hard resource limitations (e.g. runtime/memory), idiosyncratic vendor set up and vendor lock in. The former ends up making the latter so much worse.
The wins also didn't seem great enough to overcome these twin beasts.
Re: The Serverless Revolution Has Stalled
#10Serverless is the new microservice. Fortunately, for the most part it’s fallen flat on its face and for good reason - most companies don’t need it: it adds unnecessary complexity for minimal gains.
Except that people actually used microservices and microservices are actually additive and helpful.