Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux is an interpreter

astrid.tech

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#11

Post by PhilipRoman »

TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

That sounds like something I would've done... When I was a kid, the 5€/month for a VPS was a massive expense, to the point where I occasionally had to download my 10GB rootfs to my mom's windows laptop, terminate the instance and then rebuild it once I had enough money. Eventually I got an old Kindle that was able to run an app called Terminal IDE which had a Linux shell with some basic programs like busybox, gcc. Spartacus Rex, if you're out there, thank you for making my entire career possible.

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#12

Post by pwdisswordfishy »

TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

> if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't really professionals and are just coasting on real infrastructure subsidized by professionals

This is a strange claim.

Whether someone is getting paid or not to do something is what determines who is a professional, not whether or how much they're paying someone else. (And that's the only thing that matters, unlike the way that "professional" is used as a euphemism in Americans' bizarre discursive repertoire.)

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#13

Post by GranPC »

jmalicki wrote: post #5
TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

I like the term host employee, carrying the LLM parasite as it uses us to embody itself and reproduce into the singularity.

I think they meant employees from the hosting company. But that's a funny interpretation!

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#15

Post by hrmtst93837 »

TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

[flagged]

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#16

Post by chickensong »

shevy-java wrote: post #2

Well - Linux is kind of like a somewhat generic interface to have actionable, programmable tasks. One could use Windows for this too, but IMO Linux is in general better suited for that task. The only area I think Windows may be better is the graphical user interface. Now, the windows interface annoys me to no ends, but GNOME annoys me and KDE annoys me too. I have been more using fluxbox or icewm, sometimes when I fe…

> I want things to be fast and efficient and simple.

Sway + foot with keybinds to provision each workspace to your liking is pretty nice. No desktop, but really flies for your use case (mine also). Bind window focus to your most comfortable keys.

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#17

Post by bityard »

TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

The author did write that, yes. But it's very obviously a joke. The real reasons are literally the very next paragraph:

> I thought it was a neat trick, a funny shitpost that riffs on the eternal curl | sh debate. I could write a blog post about it, I tell you about how you can do it yourself, one thousand words, I learn something, you learn something, I get internet points, win win.

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#18

Post by TZubiri »

pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #12
TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

> if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't really professionals and are just coasting on real infrastructure subsidized by professionals This is a strange claim. Whether someone is getting paid or not to do something is what determines who is a professional, not whether or how much they're paying someone else. (And that's the only thing that matters, unlike the way that "professional" is used as a euphemism in Ame…

I think the sense of the word professional here is not as a boolean professional/amateur, but the sense of professionalism, the characteristic of taking business seriously, not letting personal matters intervene, and in this case, investing into tools.

To put an example, suppose you hire a painter, and they show up with non-work attire, no ladder, no brush, they ask you to buy a can of paint for them and a brush. Compared to a contractor that bills you flat and brins their own ladder, has work clothing and shoes, an air pneumatic spray painter, a breathing mask. Who is more professional?

It's part of a broader debate for sure, OP seems to have done it more for the experience than to actually save 1.50$.

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#19

Post by TZubiri »

hrmtst93837 wrote: post #15
TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

[flagged]

I really get that, and I value these otherwise pointless hack articles as much as the next guy. But I think I was specifically getting at the fact that these might actually turn into an economically useful skill just by finding a sweetspot in the amount of money they can save.

1.5$/mo is still in the toy realm, (and games can be very good for practicing before the real stuff), but using tricks like this to save 50$/mo or 500$/mo or 5k$/mo or 50k$/mo and so on can definitely cross the threshold into actually (massively) useful.

The biggest challenge in crossing that bridge is matching up clients with bad engineers but good budgets, with good engineers with no budget. There's probably thousands of engineers that are currently spinning 5$/mo into impressive architecture for their blog or their 2 user startup, and clients throwing buckets of cash into tokens and zapier/n8n. The world needs Cupids that match those together.

Re: Linux is an interpreter

#20

Post by miki123211 »

PhilipRoman wrote: post #11
TZubiri wrote: post #3

From earlier in the series. "Okay, so the reason I initially did this was because I didn’t want to pay Contabo an extra $1.50/mo to have object storage just to be able to spawn VPSes from premade disk images." I think there's a sweetspot between " I spent 50 hours to save 1.50$/mo" and "every engineer should be spending 250K$/mo in tokens". Host employees still need to eat, if we can't afford 1.50$/mo, then we aren't…

That sounds like something I would've done... When I was a kid, the 5€/month for a VPS was a massive expense, to the point where I occasionally had to download my 10GB rootfs to my mom's windows laptop, terminate the instance and then rebuild it once I had enough money. Eventually I got an old Kindle that was able to run an app called Terminal IDE which had a Linux shell with some basic programs like busybox, gcc. Sp…

And I think this point is heavily under-appreciated in the cloud Vs. on prem debate.

The cost for 1 hour of cloud CPU time is the same (barring discounts), no matter who you are. THe cost for 1 hour of engineer time varies wildly. If you're a non-profit or a solo dev, you may even consider that cost to be "free."

If your engineer costs are far lower than what AWS assumes they are, going with AWS is a stupid decision, you're far better off using VPSes / dedicated servers and self-hosting all the services you need to run on top.

Post reply on HN