4 ms·

Maybe my ignorance, but do they have services like left-pad-as-a microservice? I can't understand which 1000 microservices you can derive for a cab-renting appl

Maybe my ignorance, but do they have services like left-pad-as-a microservice? I can't understand which 1000 microservices you can derive for a cab-renting application.

0xmohit 10y ago
left-pad-as-a microservice You can also have another service to monitor the left-pad service.
- Scarblac 10y ago
  And one to aggregate its logs.
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    And another to monitor whether the logs are being aggregated. And yet another one to ensure that the log-aggregation-monitoring-service is working.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - cagataygurturk 10y ago
      Our grandpa's were running banks with 20 cobol programmers, they were not even calling themselves engineers
      - traviscj 10y ago
        And it took 1-3 nights to settle.
    - cwilkes 10y ago
      And another to redirect the misspelled first attempt "left-padd-as-service" API calls to the new one
oldmanjay 10y ago
I'm not sure if it's ignorance that leads people to dismiss things they don't understand so much as it is a coping mechanism similar to that which gave birth to various religions. Ignorance just lets it thrive after the birth.
- chetanahuja 10y ago
  Phrasing aside, it's a legitimate question. I've worked at a really really large web behemoth serving orders of magnitude more users and many many unique and disparate products (as opposed to a handful products that Uber serves). If I counted all of their production related services, I'm not sure they'd amount to anywhere close to 1700. Now I know "microservices" is the new hotness, but surely there are limits to human cognition that limit the total number of moving pieces any team can manage without maintaining a constant state of crisis. It'll be interesting to know the number of people oncall at any given time and the number of prod alerts per hour/day/week.
  - hinkley 10y ago
    I have heard of, but never witnessed, groups where the team stays together but cycles through projects a sprint at a time. One or two teams keeping three or four projects spinning but making the projects take turns. I don't know if they provide popcorn at the meetings where the project managers explain why they deserve the next sprint.
  - sidlls 10y ago
    Nonsense. libc? A microservice for every function call! Surely if you can wrap your head around a library you can wrap it around a thousand little microservices. (Snark exists in this comment.)
nichochar 10y ago
I used to work in startups, and wondered this all the time. Then I joined a big valley tech company, and now I understand. It's because they hire smart and ambitious people, but give them a tiny vertical to work on. It's a person level problem, not a technical one in my opinion. I think you solve this by designing your stack and then hiring meticulously, instead of HIRE ALL THE ENGINEERS and then figure it out (which is quite obviously uber's problem)

Maybe my ignorance, but do they have services like left-pad-as-a microservice? I can't understand which 1000 microservices you can derive for a cab-renting application.

0xmohit 10y ago

left-pad-as-a microservice You can also have another service to monitor the left-pad service.

Scarblac 10y ago
And one to aggregate its logs.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  And another to monitor whether the logs are being aggregated. And yet another one to ensure that the log-aggregation-monitoring-service is working.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - cagataygurturk 10y ago
    Our grandpa's were running banks with 20 cobol programmers, they were not even calling themselves engineers
    - traviscj 10y ago
      And it took 1-3 nights to settle.
  - cwilkes 10y ago
    And another to redirect the misspelled first attempt "left-padd-as-service" API calls to the new one

oldmanjay 10y ago

I'm not sure if it's ignorance that leads people to dismiss things they don't understand so much as it is a coping mechanism similar to that which gave birth to various religions. Ignorance just lets it thrive after the birth.

chetanahuja 10y ago
Phrasing aside, it's a legitimate question. I've worked at a really really large web behemoth serving orders of magnitude more users and many many unique and disparate products (as opposed to a handful products that Uber serves). If I counted all of their production related services, I'm not sure they'd amount to anywhere close to 1700. Now I know "microservices" is the new hotness, but surely there are limits to human cognition that limit the total number of moving pieces any team can manage without maintaining a constant state of crisis. It'll be interesting to know the number of people oncall at any given time and the number of prod alerts per hour/day/week.
- hinkley 10y ago
  I have heard of, but never witnessed, groups where the team stays together but cycles through projects a sprint at a time. One or two teams keeping three or four projects spinning but making the projects take turns. I don't know if they provide popcorn at the meetings where the project managers explain why they deserve the next sprint.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Nonsense. libc? A microservice for every function call! Surely if you can wrap your head around a library you can wrap it around a thousand little microservices. (Snark exists in this comment.)

nichochar 10y ago

I used to work in startups, and wondered this all the time. Then I joined a big valley tech company, and now I understand. It's because they hire smart and ambitious people, but give them a tiny vertical to work on. It's a person level problem, not a technical one in my opinion. I think you solve this by designing your stack and then hiring meticulously, instead of HIRE ALL THE ENGINEERS and then figure it out (which is quite obviously uber's problem)