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Troubles with the AWS web console

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Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#2
I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to. They also make the API requests take so many parameters that are specific to your particular use case that nobody will ever be able to write a generic tool that does what you want. Ever run "awscli help" and find anything useful? Didn't think so. Write your own tool if you want help!

Amazon is very much in that "we were here first so we'll do whatever we want" mentality. They can provide worse service for more money, and people love them. Nobody ever got fired for picking AWS!

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#3
The Law of Better is Worse:

User-friendly tools prevent skilled middlemen from monetizing their expertise, which stifles adoption of that tool. So on-sellable tools that are too easy-to-use, don't get on-sold.

Some examples by contradiction: tax returns, AWS Dashboard, many programming languages.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#4
I hate AWS so much.

I spent 3 hours trying to get a bucket to host a static single page of html and failed completely.

I use amazon polly. I wanted to know how many characters I was using each month. I spent 2 hours searching through hundreds of pages and literally couldn't find that information.

I thought of trying to start a little text to speech service for dyslexics to make it easy to use Polly but one of the main thing putting me off is having to get my arms mangled in the AWS machine.

The whole thing is so totally maddening. I would love to be able to sit in on their meetings where they talk about usability, what do they say? Do they think everything is fine? Do they know it's totally broken and don't care? Are they unable to hire a UX designer? What is the problem?

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#5
post #2

I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to. They also make the API requests take so many parameters that are specific to your particular use case that nobody will ever be able to write a generic tool that does what you want. Ev…

To an extent that makes sense, but I think Amazon is just generally bad at web design for reasons unknown to me. Their plain old shopping site has been horrible ever since, inconsistent and confusing, and here you can't even excuse this with diving people to an API. Maybe it's to keep people browsing for longer and get them to buy more but that's assuming it outweighs the frustration induced by it.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#6
post #3

The Law of Better is Worse: User-friendly tools prevent skilled middlemen from monetizing their expertise, which stifles adoption of that tool. So on-sellable tools that are too easy-to-use, don't get on-sold. Some examples by contradiction: tax returns, AWS Dashboard, many programming languages.

> Some examples by contradiction: tax returns, AWS Dashboard, many programming languages.

By programming languages, do you mean Rust?

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#7

I hate AWS so much. I spent 3 hours trying to get a bucket to host a static single page of html and failed completely. I use amazon polly. I wanted to know how many characters I was using each month. I spent 2 hours searching through hundreds of pages and literally couldn't find that information. I thought of trying to start a little text to speech service for dyslexics to make it easy to use Polly but one of the mai…

I completely agree. I feel stupid everything I try use AWS. I have a pile of credits in my account that I am not using because I cannot bear to try (and fail... Again).

It's maddening and they clearly do not care.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#8
It seems to me that there is a quite profitable business case in a thin abstraction over AWS/Azure/Google App Engine (or whatever it's called now).

There are lots of services like Zeit Now and Heroku that supply a complex abstraction to the point where it feels like an entirely different product. What I would want is something that allows me to host docker images/K8s on one of the big three (I guess others as well) and lets me to use configuration as code to the extent possible, but with UI/command line/API helpers that create a uniform abstraction so that can easily switch.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#9

I hate AWS so much. I spent 3 hours trying to get a bucket to host a static single page of html and failed completely. I use amazon polly. I wanted to know how many characters I was using each month. I spent 2 hours searching through hundreds of pages and literally couldn't find that information. I thought of trying to start a little text to speech service for dyslexics to make it easy to use Polly but one of the mai…

If you hate AWS so much, wait until you use Azure. Worst support ever. UI not in sync with the az-cli, documentation super chaotic, lots of basic features from AWS not yet supported in Azure.

From my experience, AWS has up-to-date documentation pages for everything. And when something is hard to understand from their docs, you can find really everything you need by searching on Google. Literally, everything. And if you ask the support forum, you'll be provided with an answer in relatively short time. Competent answers most of the time.

So, what's the alternative to the ugly AWS web console? Learn the basic concepts, and maybe use the aws cli.

Speaking about the bucket -> https://medium.com/@P_Lessing/single-page-apps-on-aws-part-1...

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#10
post #2

I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to. They also make the API requests take so many parameters that are specific to your particular use case that nobody will ever be able to write a generic tool that does what you want. Ev…

> I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to.

Same applies to all other cloud providers.

Typically, you solve this problem partially with tools like Terraform, etc. However, of course there is never a one-size-fits-all solution for such things. Vendor lock-in is an issue that many companies try to solve by adopting standard solutions, but that's it. Kubernetes for example is one of these solutions.

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