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GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

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Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#31

Post by Argorak »

mbrock wrote: post #23
staunch wrote: post #16

> For a long time, very key bits of our infrastructure were strung together with Shell scripts and simple scripting, and it’s surprisingly effective and still works really very well for us. Key bits of the world's infrastructure still run on a bunch of flimsy shell scripts that seem like they'd break all the time but don't. If a computer program works reliably at all it will probably work reliably indefinitely, assum…

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

Shell scripts have a lot of implicit dependencies.

They string together other programs with widely differing interfaces. For example BSD sed and GNU sed work very differently, at least when you accidentally use a non-standard option.

Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++ all have a stable base vocabulary (core library).

bash doesn't.

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#32

Post by mbrock »

Argorak wrote: post #31
mbrock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

Shell scripts have a lot of implicit dependencies. They string together other programs with widely differing interfaces. For example BSD sed and GNU sed work very differently, at least when you accidentally use a non-standard option. Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++ all have a stable base vocabulary (core library). bash doesn't.

True enough, though as soon as you have dependencies, you can't guarantee cross-platform or cross-version portability with those other languages either.

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#33

Post by Argorak »

mbrock wrote: post #32
Argorak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shell scripts have a lot of implicit dependencies. They string together other programs with widely differing interfaces. For example BSD sed and GNU sed work very differently, at least when you accidentally use a non-standard option. Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++ all have a stable base vocabulary (core library). bash doesn't.

True enough, though as soon as you have dependencies, you can't guarantee cross-platform or cross-version portability with those other languages either.

They all come with a dependency manager and the problem of sh (or bash? got your bashisms ready all the time?) is that the moment of introducing dependencies is "immediate".

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#34

Post by why-el »

Another thing that would be interesting to learn more about is their Front end structure. From what I can gather they keep things extremely simple (jQuery, mostly) and make extensive use of pjax and server generated javascript that gets evaluated by the client. If this is all there is to it then it is really impressive, considering how many other companies of similar or smaller size quickly inject a Javascript MVC on top of their stack the minute the interaction goes past simple forms (Airbnb comes to mind, who to my knowledge is using Backbone for some aspects of their app).

To be clear I think both approaches are excellent and all depends on the in-house talent, but nonetheless it's interesting to see how GitHub is sticking to a traditional, Rails-inspired document-based approach that minimizes front end complexity while other companies do not, even when both have similar UX complexity.

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#35

Post by sanswork »

snowwolf wrote: post #28
sanswork wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an RV and did this for a while. It was fun but I wasn't any more productive. In the past I also tried moving to a remote beach resort town in Australia with a cofounder. It was fun and beautiful but again no more productive than we were back home.

Is that the point though? To be more productive? I'd be more interested to know if you were at least equally as productive and more importantly happier? I would think it's about improving your work/life balance and long term does that make you more fulfilled?

Most people seem to think it will make them more productive without the distractions so for a lot of people it is. Pretty view won't improve your work/life balance either unfortunately.

I was less productive and equally happy. All existences become the norm quickly. Even living in a tropical paradise, or surrounded by snow capped mountain wilderness.

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#36

Post by rakoo »

anko wrote: post #27
mbrock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

One of my pet peeves about shell scripts (speaking as a former UNIX admin) is the lack of static typing or test frameworks. So not only is the language less elegant than modern programming languages, but it's harder to test for bugs and you don't even get type safety.

The creator of bup (https://github.com/bup/bup/) also created wvtest (https://github.com/apenwarr/wvtest) to "unit test" any code in any combination of language on any platform. It's actually kind of cheating: all you do in your code is write lines with a specific format, and then the wvthing parses that to display stats.

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#37

Post by oweiler »

anko wrote: post #27
mbrock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

One of my pet peeves about shell scripts (speaking as a former UNIX admin) is the lack of static typing or test frameworks. So not only is the language less elegant than modern programming languages, but it's harder to test for bugs and you don't even get type safety.

I'm currently in the process of putting together a first version of bash-specs, a Bash testing framework which provides features found in other languages' test frameworks, like

- a DSL for describing specifications

- the ability to mock functions and commands

- detailed, human-readable output

You can find some sample-tests in the spec/ folder (bash-specs eats its own dog food by testing itself ;)).

Dokumentation is lacking and the mocking is currently broken but both will be fixed within the next days.

https://github.com/helpermethod/bash-specs/

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#38

Post by [deleted] »

Argorak wrote: post #31
mbrock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

Shell scripts have a lot of implicit dependencies. They string together other programs with widely differing interfaces. For example BSD sed and GNU sed work very differently, at least when you accidentally use a non-standard option. Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++ all have a stable base vocabulary (core library). bash doesn't.

[deleted]

Re: GitHub: Scaling on Ruby, with a nomadic tech team

#39

Post by jasim »

Argorak wrote: post #31
mbrock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting why shell scripts are seen as so "fragile" or "flimsy." Why would bash be any more inherently flimsy than any other interpreted language? Why would the global mass of Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++, whatever be any less fragile? The whole world is held together by duct tape. At least most shell scripts keep it simple.

Shell scripts have a lot of implicit dependencies. They string together other programs with widely differing interfaces. For example BSD sed and GNU sed work very differently, at least when you accidentally use a non-standard option. Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Java, C++ all have a stable base vocabulary (core library). bash doesn't.

Speaking of implicit dependencies, here are a few: env, path, any executable file either in the current directory or in the search path. env = functions and aliases, and can be modified by any shell script. The path is an implicit dependency in the sense any chmod +x files in any of these directories can affect the shell. Which means the shell is also dependent on the file system itself.
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