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Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

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Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#51

Post by facorreia »

eigenvalue wrote: post #14
rollcat wrote: post #10

"This simple tool solves X at my org" is probably the most underrated type of project. There's not enough room to overcomplicate something that isn't a core part of the business, it must be practical to maintain, simple&stupid enough so that onboarding is not a hurdle, etc. I encourage everyone to share your "splunk in 1kloc of Python" projects! Some of my own: - https://github.com/rollcat/judo is Ansible without Pyt…

Thanks, based on the dismissive replies to my original comment in the Splunk acquisition discussion, I thought this would get a lot of hostile takes saying that it was dumb, that I reinvented the wheel because I didn't want to spend 2 weeks trying to figure out opentelemetry nonsense and tools X, Y, and Z, that it was trivial, that it wouldn't scale, etc. But people are actually being surprisingly nice and friendly!…

Your project sounds like something that definitely could come in handy. I forked it as a "bookmark". I particularly like the idea of storing the data in a local SQLite database. Not everything needs to be "web scale".

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#52

Post by facorreia »

msto wrote: post #45
oblvious-earth wrote: post #17

Quickly skimming some points that would irratate me if I had to maintain this script: * Importing Paramiko but regularly call `ssh` via subprocess * Unused functions like `execute_network_commands_func` * Sharing state via a global instead of creating a class Overall it's fit for purpose, but makes a lot of assumptions about the host and client machines. As you said in the thread you're running a very small number of…

* barely any comments and not a single docstring in the entire kiloline file

It's not that much code and it has sensible function names. I appreciate that OP took the time to share his tool with us.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#53

Post by fastasucan »

eigenvalue wrote: post #48
msto wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* barely any comments and not a single docstring in the entire kiloline file

I find comments annoying to read and write and distracting. I’d rather fit more code on the screen at once and instead focus on making the variable names and function names really descriptive and clear so you immediately grasp what it’s doing from context alone. Nowadays, if you really need comments to tell you what code is doing, you can just throw it into ChatGPT and get it that way.

I really like the tool you made, and appreciate helping your company save money as well! I don't think it matter that this isn't a perfect fit for everyone else (as you said, this was something you made to solve your problem) - but boy do I disagree with the "variable and function names really descriptive and clear so you immediate grasp what its doing from context alone". What is a descriptive function or variable name is extremely dependent on how familiar you are with the context the program functions in. Using `execute_network_commands_func`from above - this descriptive name say nothing about what network commands that are executed. With docstrings it would be so easy to detail input and output of this function.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#54

Post by matrss »

xorcist wrote: post #34
rollcat wrote: post #10

"This simple tool solves X at my org" is probably the most underrated type of project. There's not enough room to overcomplicate something that isn't a core part of the business, it must be practical to maintain, simple&stupid enough so that onboarding is not a hurdle, etc. I encourage everyone to share your "splunk in 1kloc of Python" projects! Some of my own: - https://github.com/rollcat/judo is Ansible without Pyt…

Your software is cool but the description is a bit unfair to Ansible. Ansible works by solving for desired state. This software runs scripts, it replaces "for host in; do ssh $host < script.sh; done".

Last time I checked, ansible playbooks were also essentially just sequential steps to execute via ssh, albeit in yaml format. There was certainly no way to describe a desired state nor did ansible accomplish consistently bringing a system into some desired state. Two executions of the same playbook could result in a very different system state for example, depending on what happened in between.

The only systems I am aware of which are reliably capable of "solving for desired state" are nix and guix.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#55

Post by eigenvalue »

facorreia wrote: post #51
eigenvalue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, based on the dismissive replies to my original comment in the Splunk acquisition discussion, I thought this would get a lot of hostile takes saying that it was dumb, that I reinvented the wheel because I didn't want to spend 2 weeks trying to figure out opentelemetry nonsense and tools X, Y, and Z, that it was trivial, that it wouldn't scale, etc. But people are actually being surprisingly nice and friendly!…

Your project sounds like something that definitely could come in handy. I forked it as a "bookmark". I particularly like the idea of storing the data in a local SQLite database. Not everything needs to be "web scale".

The real power is that with datasette you can instantly turn that SQLite DB into a full fledged responsive web app with arbitrarily complex filtering and sorting, which all gets serialized to the URL so you can share it and bookmark it for future use.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#56

Post by eigenvalue »

matrss wrote: post #54
xorcist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your software is cool but the description is a bit unfair to Ansible. Ansible works by solving for desired state. This software runs scripts, it replaces "for host in; do ssh $host < script.sh; done".

Last time I checked, ansible playbooks were also essentially just sequential steps to execute via ssh, albeit in yaml format. There was certainly no way to describe a desired state nor did ansible accomplish consistently bringing a system into some desired state. Two executions of the same playbook could result in a very different system state for example, depending on what happened in between. The only systems I am…

Ansible is definitely all about solving from a specified target state and ensuring that it is followed. It’s even at the level of syntax for ansible, which is how it can be used totally declaratively. And if you stick to the native idiomatic ansible way of doing everything (as opposed to doing hacky stuff with ad hoc shell commmands), you get automatic idempotence and other nice stuff “for free”.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#57

Post by eigenvalue »

CliffStoll wrote: post #21

Oh, how I wish I had your scripts (and insights!) when I was analyzing Unix logs in 1986, looking for the footprints of an intruder...

Thanks for the comment! Going to check out your book now— I somehow hadn’t heard of it before despite it being right down my alley!

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#58

Post by silasb »

facorreia wrote: post #51
eigenvalue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, based on the dismissive replies to my original comment in the Splunk acquisition discussion, I thought this would get a lot of hostile takes saying that it was dumb, that I reinvented the wheel because I didn't want to spend 2 weeks trying to figure out opentelemetry nonsense and tools X, Y, and Z, that it was trivial, that it wouldn't scale, etc. But people are actually being surprisingly nice and friendly!…

Your project sounds like something that definitely could come in handy. I forked it as a "bookmark". I particularly like the idea of storing the data in a local SQLite database. Not everything needs to be "web scale".

Not only that, but with https://litestream.io/ things becomes even more interesting.

I'm currently using this for a small application to easily backup databases in docker containers.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#59

Post by xorcist »

matrss wrote: post #54
xorcist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your software is cool but the description is a bit unfair to Ansible. Ansible works by solving for desired state. This software runs scripts, it replaces "for host in; do ssh $host < script.sh; done".

Last time I checked, ansible playbooks were also essentially just sequential steps to execute via ssh, albeit in yaml format. There was certainly no way to describe a desired state nor did ansible accomplish consistently bringing a system into some desired state. Two executions of the same playbook could result in a very different system state for example, depending on what happened in between. The only systems I am…

You can run sequential commands with ansible, but then you're just using it as a replacement for "ssh $host < script.sh". You would be missing out on most of the usefulness of the tool. It's meant to be used declaratively. The manual describes it quite well. In the same type of tools are puppet and indeed nix, but with one important difference for the latter: nix is also a package manager, which allows for more a fine grained state specification.

Re: Show HN: My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup

#60

Post by rollcat »

xorcist wrote: post #34
rollcat wrote: post #10

"This simple tool solves X at my org" is probably the most underrated type of project. There's not enough room to overcomplicate something that isn't a core part of the business, it must be practical to maintain, simple&stupid enough so that onboarding is not a hurdle, etc. I encourage everyone to share your "splunk in 1kloc of Python" projects! Some of my own: - https://github.com/rollcat/judo is Ansible without Pyt…

Your software is cool but the description is a bit unfair to Ansible. Ansible works by solving for desired state. This software runs scripts, it replaces "for host in; do ssh $host < script.sh; done".

This is fair criticism.

When I first created Judo, I envisioned some sort of a standard library as a sibling project, sort of an "executable rosetta stone" for Unix, where you could declaratively say things like "ensure this user exists", "ensure this package is installed".

In practice I found out it's fairly easy to just write your scripts to be idempotent. It was the secret "2. and do not overcomplicate things" step that most initially simple software seems to gradually forget about.

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