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It's OK to use heuristics and "magic" in many cases - when it's acceptable to have correctness rate lower than 100%. When an IDE generates some code it's OK tha

by twa927 11y ago

It's OK to use heuristics and "magic" in many cases - when it's acceptable to have correctness rate lower than 100%. When an IDE generates some code it's OK that it's correct in 90% cases only, because I can review the code and correct it. But for a deployment tool even 99.99% correctness is not acceptable - it must be 100%. That's why I wouldn't use a deployment tool built on heuristics. You can't make it correct 100% even when having huge number of tests. (unless the tool works like a magic config generator only that I can review)

mentat 11y ago
I'm not sure what real world deployment tools you're talking about, but 99.99% would be pretty good. Actually distributed deployment is "a hard problem".
brianmurphy 11y ago
For the same reason that "90%" okay IDE code is acceptable for most people, 90% correct deployment will also be okay for most. Primarily because less experienced users could be doing a 40 - 60% optimal deployment today.
coldtea 11y ago
I think you're overstating your case. Have you ever seen a 100% correct deployment? Even if someone thinks they have, I doubt it wont be revealed to have numerous issues.
jacques_chester 11y ago
I've worked on the Cloud Foundry buildpacks team. What mitchellh describes for PHP (taking his example) is something that Cloud Foundry already does: take a codebase, apply heuristics to build and package it, then pass it off to a runtime. Heroku and OpenShift do it too. The thing is that you're worried about snowflake deployment. You're still in the mindset that your app deserves special treatment; if it doesn't stage and launch using community-accepted best practices, then the platform is to blame. I disagree. If your app needs zany configurations just to launch, I think that's a smell. From time to time on buildpacks we would receive bug reports of the form "my app doesn't work". Usually, upon closer inspection, there was an easier fix: follow best practices. The thing to remember about PaaSes like Cloud Foundry, Heroku, OpenShift and now Otto is that they are opinionated by design. The goal is not to provide an infinite supply of knobs and dials. We tried that with mod_perl, with PHP, with Java. It's a freaking nightmare made of sentient, glutinous mud that wants to eat your soul. Our job as engineers is not to tinker. It's to create value for users and businesses. Clinging to the illusion of control is wasteful. When I fly I don't care about how the plane works; I just care that it's fast enough, safe enough and cheap enough.

by twa927 11y ago

mentat 11y ago

I'm not sure what real world deployment tools you're talking about, but 99.99% would be pretty good. Actually distributed deployment is "a hard problem".

brianmurphy 11y ago

For the same reason that "90%" okay IDE code is acceptable for most people, 90% correct deployment will also be okay for most. Primarily because less experienced users could be doing a 40 - 60% optimal deployment today.

coldtea 11y ago

I think you're overstating your case. Have you ever seen a 100% correct deployment? Even if someone thinks they have, I doubt it wont be revealed to have numerous issues.

jacques_chester 11y ago

I've worked on the Cloud Foundry buildpacks team. What mitchellh describes for PHP (taking his example) is something that Cloud Foundry already does: take a codebase, apply heuristics to build and package it, then pass it off to a runtime. Heroku and OpenShift do it too. The thing is that you're worried about snowflake deployment. You're still in the mindset that your app deserves special treatment; if it doesn't stage and launch using community-accepted best practices, then the platform is to blame. I disagree. If your app needs zany configurations just to launch, I think that's a smell. From time to time on buildpacks we would receive bug reports of the form "my app doesn't work". Usually, upon closer inspection, there was an easier fix: follow best practices. The thing to remember about PaaSes like Cloud Foundry, Heroku, OpenShift and now Otto is that they are opinionated by design. The goal is not to provide an infinite supply of knobs and dials. We tried that with mod_perl, with PHP, with Java. It's a freaking nightmare made of sentient, glutinous mud that wants to eat your soul. Our job as engineers is not to tinker. It's to create value for users and businesses. Clinging to the illusion of control is wasteful. When I fly I don't care about how the plane works; I just care that it's fast enough, safe enough and cheap enough.