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Monoliths are not dinosaurs

allthingsdistributed.com

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Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#21

Post by jabradoodle »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #18

Like most articles in distributed systems, this makes wild assumptions about the most important, i.e. the human layer. I would bet $100 that this is written by the same sort of person who thinks "Managers – what do they do all day exactly?" [1] > If you hire the best engineers.... Guess what, there is no broad consensus on what "best engineer" means. I bet your org is rejecting really good engineers right now because…

Their point on hiring the best engineers was specifically about not following the hype, and allowing engineers to engineer.

Also, they never claimed technical superiority of microservices, quote:

> For example, a startup with five engineers may choose a monolithic architecture because it is easier to deploy and doesn’t require their small team to learn multiple programming languages.

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#22

Post by ulizzle »

marcosdumay wrote: post #8
akhayam wrote: post #4

Werner's advice in my own words: 1. Don't pick an architecture because it's all the rage right now. 2. Don't pick an architecture that mimics your org's structure. Aka don't fall prey to Conway's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law . 3. Don't pick an architecture that your team can't operationalize--e.g. due to lack of skills or due to business constraints.

> Aka don't fall prey to Conway's law You can't not fall prey to Conway's law. You can only choose how you organize your people and their interfaces.

Conway's Law and Murphy's Law. They'll get you every time.

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#23

Post by dmbche »

asdfman123 wrote: post #13
bovermyer wrote: post #11

You know, I'm pretty sure you could build a PHP monolith in 2023 without a framework and it would do what it needed to do.

Bad coding is infinitely worse than a “bad” language. I don’t know how many of you are musicians, but many people are surprised to find that the tone quality of a guitar has way more to do with the person playing it than the way it was built.

Surprising! Will look into

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#24

Post by musicale »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #18

Like most articles in distributed systems, this makes wild assumptions about the most important, i.e. the human layer. I would bet $100 that this is written by the same sort of person who thinks "Managers – what do they do all day exactly?" [1] > If you hire the best engineers.... Guess what, there is no broad consensus on what "best engineer" means. I bet your org is rejecting really good engineers right now because…

> Managers – what do they do all day exactly?

In companies I'm familiar with projects are run by technical leads and product leads.

Managers don't interact with anyone doing actual work, which is probably for the best.

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#25

Post by quadrifoliate »

jabradoodle wrote: post #21
quadrifoliate wrote: post #18

Like most articles in distributed systems, this makes wild assumptions about the most important, i.e. the human layer. I would bet $100 that this is written by the same sort of person who thinks "Managers – what do they do all day exactly?" [1] > If you hire the best engineers.... Guess what, there is no broad consensus on what "best engineer" means. I bet your org is rejecting really good engineers right now because…

Their point on hiring the best engineers was specifically about not following the hype, and allowing engineers to engineer. Also, they never claimed technical superiority of microservices, quote: > For example, a startup with five engineers may choose a monolithic architecture because it is easier to deploy and doesn’t require their small team to learn multiple programming languages.

> Also, they never claimed technical superiority of microservices, quote:

No, but they are arguing against the strawman of the perceived technical inferiority of monoliths. Look at the title of the article.

I am simply calling out that strawman as such.

If they wanted to convey the message of "It all depends, use the best architecture for the job", they should reflect that in the title.

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#27

Post by pphysch »

bovermyer wrote: post #11

You know, I'm pretty sure you could build a PHP monolith in 2023 without a framework and it would do what it needed to do.

Sure, but framework-less PHP incentivizes poor architecture (hey we can do everything in 1 file to KISS x 100 endpoints = microservice hell). Requires an expert and disciplined engineer to execute well.

Re: Monoliths are not dinosaurs

#30

Post by jabradoodle »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #25
jabradoodle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point on hiring the best engineers was specifically about not following the hype, and allowing engineers to engineer. Also, they never claimed technical superiority of microservices, quote: > For example, a startup with five engineers may choose a monolithic architecture because it is easier to deploy and doesn’t require their small team to learn multiple programming languages.

> Also, they never claimed technical superiority of microservices, quote: No, but they are arguing against the strawman of the perceived technical inferiority of monoliths. Look at the title of the article. I am simply calling out that strawman as such. If they wanted to convey the message of "It all depends, use the best architecture for the job", they should reflect that in the title.

Maybe we have radically different experiences, I don't see that as a strawman, the industry as I have seen it largely does view microservices as superior.
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