Write libraries instead of services, where possible • Hacker News Board

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#171

Post by carmen_sandiego » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #133

whack wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's miserable fighting off a million people who want to help me for 'less than the daily price of your coffee'. Is it also miserable "fighting off" a million companies who want to sell you stuff for the daily price of a coffee? Stuff like T-Shirts, books, newspapers, candy, etc? You seem to have a patronizing attitude towards software products/services. You seem to think that they are so simple, that they should b…

It’s not hard to find a T-shirt I can wear over and over again without having to keep paying for it. Nowadays it’s nearly impossible to find software that lets you pay once at a reasonable price. So yeah, it is very frustrating to fight off subscriptions.

So write your own software for your needs and sell it for a one off price?

But you presumably won't because the incentive isn't great enough. Which is exactly why people milk subs. And if you're not willing to do it for the incentive of a one off price, why should anyone else be?

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#172

Post by ragnese » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

wcarss wrote: post #60

I don't hear people talk about the design side of services vs libraries enough, but I think it's a huge part of the picture. Many people reach for services too fast because they feel more comfortable thinking about APIs through the lens of HTTP verbs and resource URLs than they do in the comparatively infinite garden of options inside a program. The REST paradigm, despite most people not understanding, needing, or ut…

> As it is though, most people just don't know any other consistent, repeatable way to break a complex system down.

I think MVC is that. It's just vague enough that you can square-peg-round-hole almost anything into it, but it's also pretty prescriptive in that there are exactly three "components" to your program and each has a specific role and relationship to the others.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#173

Post by cultofmetatron » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

whycombagator wrote: post #170

cultofmetatron wrote: post #141

Phoenix is practically built with this idea in mind. My startup is built out of a single phoenix monolith. Only external dependency is postgres. Despite this, I've managed to completely avoid all the typical scaling issues of a monolith. Need a service or background worker? I juts make a Genserver or Oban worker and mount it in the supervision tree. The Beam takes care of maintaining the process, pubsub to said servi…

> Leaves me more time to work on tuning out database to keep up! As your using postgres have you looked at citus[0] at all? [0] https://github.com/citusdata/citus

I hadn't heard of this but it looks cool. Looks like something that will do the job when we do need it. so far we just store the parameters from certain heavily used mutations into a job table and run the actual insertion in a background worker. We're no where near needing this yet but it'll be good to have it on hand when we (hopefully) get to that point.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#174

Post by weaksauce » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ganafagol wrote: post #20

> A service has constant administration costs which are paid by the service provider. A properly designed library instead moves these costs to the users of the library. I agree with the articles point, but this introduction, right there, is why it's not happening. SaaS turns your startup into a unicorn and yourself into a rich person. Or at least that's what you are hoping/aiming for. A library is not going to make y…

there is also the fact that companies might see a smaller operating expenditure vs a larger capital expenditure as a benefit as well. depends on the situation of the company but it could be an easier sell.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#175

Post by Grollicus » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

kybernetikos wrote: post #81

ganafagol wrote: post #20

> A service has constant administration costs which are paid by the service provider. A properly designed library instead moves these costs to the users of the library. I agree with the articles point, but this introduction, right there, is why it's not happening. SaaS turns your startup into a unicorn and yourself into a rich person. Or at least that's what you are hoping/aiming for. A library is not going to make y…

You're right. The fact that people can make outsize rewards from subscription services are the reason that even small single use tools are now 'services'. I have a piece of software that removes the background from my video feed. It's a subscription, and it regularly phones home. I have a piece of software that lets me visually combine, rotate and reorder pdfs. It's a subscription. Even the simplest things, like a 't…

I think this is especially annoying on the app stores, as there is no way to filter for a specific price (range) or in apple's case for apps that don't sell your data to everyone and your neighbor

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#176

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

artembugara wrote: post #114

Write libraries AND services, where it makes sense. I wrote a Python library to scrape google news [0] We also have it as a service [1] Want to know why? Because devs who can't pay won't pay. Businesses who can pay will rather pay for a service (API in our case), and not care about maintaining it. [0] https://github.com/kotartemiy/pygooglenews [1] https://newscatcherapi.com/google-news-api

The hidden message of the mantra "just self host your own" is that it takes you time to set that up. If you aren't familiar with that process from past experiences, you now have to get those man hours somehow for selfhosting, and suddenly that free self-hosted solution is not so free if you value your time over $0/hr.

That's where I think services should come in. Only with no phoning home crap or cruft, just give me a hosted version of a bare bones cli app that I can access anywhere from any device. Give me my own instance of tiny tiny RSS or something else that's very lightweight and commonly selfhosted for $1 a month, and I'll happily pay up to avoid having to spend a few hours vetting hosting options and setting this up myself.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#177

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

101008 wrote: post #2

I like the approach and it seems to be definitely better for everyone, but how you monetize a library?

You put it on your resume and make your bread doing other jobs or freelance work, where you are now the top candidate in the pile thanks to the work you've done with your publically available library where anyone can inspect the source and see your handiwork.

Engineers in tech always complain that there is no proof of good work, like someone in biochemistry with a stack of papers on their CV would have. Well, this is how you do it. You spend effort sharing ideas with the community knowing you won't necessarily make a dime off of them, just like the biochem person who doesn't get paid per paper, and not spend 100% of your personal efforts working for someone else in private on a for profit project you aren't at liberty to intimately discuss.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#178

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

RohMin wrote: post #9

selfhoster11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does everything have to be about money? This is "Hacker" News, not "Monetize Everything" News.

How are we to survive then

I forgot all those GNU developers are currently in poverty asking for alms in the street...

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#179

Post by pojzon » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

suyash wrote: post #125

ganafagol wrote: post #20

> A service has constant administration costs which are paid by the service provider. A properly designed library instead moves these costs to the users of the library. I agree with the articles point, but this introduction, right there, is why it's not happening. SaaS turns your startup into a unicorn and yourself into a rich person. Or at least that's what you are hoping/aiming for. A library is not going to make y…

wrong, you can have both, several successful open source projects have libraries that are released under friendly open source license. SaaS comes in to provide added benefits over DIY approach, both realities can happily exist and in fact open source growth drives SaaS business models.

And if companies like Amazon can turn them into a SaaS they immediately do so.

Re: Write libraries instead of services, where possible

#180

Post by deckard1 » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

yabudemada wrote: post #115

kybernetikos wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. The fact that people can make outsize rewards from subscription services are the reason that even small single use tools are now 'services'. I have a piece of software that removes the background from my video feed. It's a subscription, and it regularly phones home. I have a piece of software that lets me visually combine, rotate and reorder pdfs. It's a subscription. Even the simplest things, like a 't…

MS Office is a great example of this because they squeeze money out of folks when it seems the features added are minimal. The only interesting aspect is cloud-collaboration, but that could be P2P instead. I'm willing to wager most folks still use the same subset of office functionality: page layouts and fonts and such have been around for a while; financial formulas rarely change; etc. But yet, they are charged an a…

MS Office is a good example, and like you mentioned Word is pretty much Word from 10 years ago.

But you know who else does this? Book publishers. Specifically, textbook publishers. Every year there is a new edition of a calculus or algebra book. So this is a business model that has been around for awhile, and takes a variety of shapes. Such as planned obsolescence.

Software has it easy today, though. They can just cry "security updates" and instantly have a solid case for the subscription model. Even if it is nonsense.