3 ms·

You're getting downvoted because of the impression of a sort of caustic nature of the comment, I suspect, but I agree with your real point. I put containers an

by sidlls 9y ago

You're getting downvoted because of the impression of a sort of caustic nature of the comment, I suspect, but I agree with your real point. I put containers and "orchestration" like kubernetes right up there with "Big Data", Kafka and a bunch of other technology that is the current fad. All of these have a legitimate use case. Odds are the use case of anyone reading this comment isn't one. But because of the terribly broken interview process and bandwagon effects, engineers feel compelled to force them into the development process in order to bypass filters (human and automated) on their resumes and keep a sort of social cache among their peers.

viraptor 9y ago
I downvoted it, because it's an opinion about things some people do and has nothing to do with the technology. You can use it well, you can use it badly. If you claim "They are there to produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills", then you haven't seen a problem they solve. That's fine. Just don't try to tell people there is no such problem.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I think it has everything to do with the technology. Specifically the technology solves problems most (almost all) organizations don't have, yet their adoption is practically ubiquitous as is their requirement to appear on a resume to get past gatekeepers. If in the end the technology is used more as a means to "produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills" than to solve problems for their legitimate use cases it hardly is an error to point it out.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    Are you saying almost all organisation don't need to solve the problem of consistent deployment artifacts and easily reproducible testing/dev environment? Because these are some of the problems containers can solve. (not the only problems, and they're not the only solution - but they can be a solution to those specific cases)
- erikb 9y ago
  I upvoted because you are explaining why you downvoted. My argument is, that they don't solve a new problem. Where there are already solutions it's fine (e.g. multiprocessing), but where there aren't solutions yet (e.g. low bandwidth cluster storage, or simply networking) it doesn't add any value. And instead of solving any of the hard problems it adds a layer of abstraction on top of the problems that makes it harder for the every day engineer to solve the problems. Pretty similar to the article's point of view, but not that it hides cultural problems under a tech layer, but technical problems. And yes, for the pure developer it might be better, because he can now focus more on his software only. But someone needs to maintain the infrastructure the software runs on, and this job just got harder.
erikb 9y ago
It's really funny how you describe my job perfectly. It started as Hadoop bandwagon, and now it's Kafka/Big Data/Kubernetes. The basic idea of Kubernetes is really great. But it's not really finished development yet, and already bloated as hell. If you add that most of the stuff also runs on Openstack, which has the exact same problem, and developers who still don't understand that this is not a silo-build sysstem, you end up in an environment where 100+ people only work on getting your stuff installed with the same control you would have with a signle developer, ssh and init scripts. PS: my comment isn't even in the minus anymore. It often happens that the first 1-2 views give negative comments and then it gets upvoted quite far. Not sure why. From my perspective I write as objective as possible. But also don't really want to think about it too much. For some people my thoughts seem valuable enough, so it's fine.
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "I put containers and "orchestration" like kubernetes right up there with "Big Data", Kafka and a bunch of other technology that is the current fad." I'd put "cloud computing" in that list. The only explanations I can think of as to why it's taken off so quickly are: 1. Not all companies are large enough to hire their own sysadmin(s). 2. Mid to large sized companies can have byzantine budget bureaucracies, making it easier to invest in short term fixes rather than considering long term savings. However, there are also large tech-savvy companies using cloud computing, and paying through the nose for the privilege, that's the part I really can't understand.

by sidlls 9y ago

viraptor 9y ago

I downvoted it, because it's an opinion about things some people do and has nothing to do with the technology. You can use it well, you can use it badly. If you claim "They are there to produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills", then you haven't seen a problem they solve. That's fine. Just don't try to tell people there is no such problem.

sidlls 9y ago
I think it has everything to do with the technology. Specifically the technology solves problems most (almost all) organizations don't have, yet their adoption is practically ubiquitous as is their requirement to appear on a resume to get past gatekeepers. If in the end the technology is used more as a means to "produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills" than to solve problems for their legitimate use cases it hardly is an error to point it out.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Are you saying almost all organisation don't need to solve the problem of consistent deployment artifacts and easily reproducible testing/dev environment? Because these are some of the problems containers can solve. (not the only problems, and they're not the only solution - but they can be a solution to those specific cases)
erikb 9y ago
I upvoted because you are explaining why you downvoted. My argument is, that they don't solve a new problem. Where there are already solutions it's fine (e.g. multiprocessing), but where there aren't solutions yet (e.g. low bandwidth cluster storage, or simply networking) it doesn't add any value. And instead of solving any of the hard problems it adds a layer of abstraction on top of the problems that makes it harder for the every day engineer to solve the problems. Pretty similar to the article's point of view, but not that it hides cultural problems under a tech layer, but technical problems. And yes, for the pure developer it might be better, because he can now focus more on his software only. But someone needs to maintain the infrastructure the software runs on, and this job just got harder.

erikb 9y ago

It's really funny how you describe my job perfectly. It started as Hadoop bandwagon, and now it's Kafka/Big Data/Kubernetes. The basic idea of Kubernetes is really great. But it's not really finished development yet, and already bloated as hell. If you add that most of the stuff also runs on Openstack, which has the exact same problem, and developers who still don't understand that this is not a silo-build sysstem, you end up in an environment where 100+ people only work on getting your stuff installed with the same control you would have with a signle developer, ssh and init scripts. PS: my comment isn't even in the minus anymore. It often happens that the first 1-2 views give negative comments and then it gets upvoted quite far. Not sure why. From my perspective I write as objective as possible. But also don't really want to think about it too much. For some people my thoughts seem valuable enough, so it's fine.

ZenoArrow 9y ago

> "I put containers and "orchestration" like kubernetes right up there with "Big Data", Kafka and a bunch of other technology that is the current fad." I'd put "cloud computing" in that list. The only explanations I can think of as to why it's taken off so quickly are: 1. Not all companies are large enough to hire their own sysadmin(s). 2. Mid to large sized companies can have byzantine budget bureaucracies, making it easier to invest in short term fixes rather than considering long term savings. However, there are also large tech-savvy companies using cloud computing, and paying through the nose for the privilege, that's the part I really can't understand.