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You are missing the whole point. As a designer that dabbles a bit in code and servers, I literally have NO idea what most of the words you just used mean. I kn

by sadok 8y ago

You are missing the whole point. As a designer that dabbles a bit in code and servers, I literally have NO idea what most of the words you just used mean. I know that S3 has nothing to do with FTP, but it's a nice analogy that I can relate to. Get off your high horse.

scarface74 8y ago
Why is he that is on his high horse? It would take watching one or two videos on YouTube or Pluralsight to know on a high level what these services are. If I came to you not knowing anything about the vocabulary used in your field of expertise is that your field’s fault or mine?
thekelvinliu 8y ago
the original comment offers some constructive criticism because the article does have the potential to misinform novice users about what certain services do and the technologies they use. yours is more of a directed personal attack; keep in mind that this is hn. good on you for knowing a priori s3 is not ftp. but i wouldn't expect someone new to development to necessarily know this. as a result, they could have an even harder time figuring out how to do things if, for example, they search for advice on how to connect to the s3 ftp server.
- sam0x17 8y ago
  That said, I would expect someone learning web development to start out the old way like we all did with static HTML and a simple apache server and work their way up to newer things from there. Not doing this runs the risk of completely missing the point of how everything works.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - eksemplar 8y ago
    To what end? Would you also teach someone binary, assembly and C before you taught them JAVA? I see your approach in a lot of fresh graduates. They’ve learned things from the ground up, which means a good chunk of what they’ve learned is useless historic knowledge that doesn’t actually teach you a lot about how the modern eco-system of the web works. That’s time they could have spent learning docker and authentication security. I mean, it’s often the one guy/girl who’s spent their free time setting up ADFS authentication in AWS for the fun of it, who gets the job. But why wouldn’t you teach them that instead of teaching then legacy shit they’ll never use that also isn’t really that handy for understanding how things work now? We’re supposed to stand on the shoulders of giants, and having struggled with apache or better yet the IIS, is just so utterly useless.
    - sam0x17 8y ago
      I wouldn't teach binary, assembly and C before teaching Java. That's a bad analogy. It's different with the web. You have to understand what clients and servers are, and it's much more clear with a basic apache setup than it is with, say, the node.js ecosystem which blurs that line between client and server to a confusing degree.
    - sam0x17 8y ago
      So you would advocate for, say, learning JSX and react before learning how to use vanilla JS, and maybe a little bit of JQuery to manipulate the DOM, or learning HAML before learning HTML? No wonder the current generation of junior devs is so damn confused.
      - eksemplar 8y ago
        I think you should learn the foundations of JS before you use a JS library, but I see no value in teaching people JQuery before you teach them react.
        sam0x17 8y ago
        I politely disagree. JQuery is (largely) syntactic sugar over the built in node selection engine and various CSS properties, animations, etc, that are built in and very much a part of normal everyday browser javascript. React is something else entirely, and creates a system parallel to the DOM rather than simply using the DOM the way it was intended. You have to understand the DOM and how it is typically used before you jump to something like React, and a great way to do that is vanilla js with a little JQuery sprinkled in. There is less friction this way, and it demonstrates the impetus for separating javascript from HTML and not using selectors for everything. Otherwise you miss the point of why React is good, and you run the risk of misusing (or in the very least under-appreciating) it. People with all this background still often make terrible React apps, so imagine how bad the people who don't even understand what or why React is will do.
hk__2 8y ago
> Get off your high horse. Please keep the discussion respectful.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lukev 8y ago
Here are some better names for S3 that aren't misleading: - Binary Storage - Blob Storge - File Storage - Reliable Storage FTP is a specific protocol. Hard drives (as a sibling comment mentions) are a specific technology. Our discipline is confusing enough that names should be precise, not analogical.
- AlexB138 8y ago
  "File Storage" is a bad idea for the same reasons comparing to FTP is. It might work for a near layman, but it can actually communicate misinformation to someone who knows slightly more about storage. Specifically, S3 is Object Storage, as opposed to File or Block Storage. This is why "simple descriptions" are hard. Leaving nuance behind makes a lot of room for confusion.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    Since S3 was more or less the first service to have the concept of Object storage, I think we would have been able to deal with ‘File’ storage. Also, I think the difference is more between filesystem and object storage. You are still uploading files to both.
  - sam0x17 8y ago
    Yes, I'm still waiting for an "unlimited pay-as-you-go SFTP service" that uses something like S3 as a backend, but you connect with SFTP.
- SilasX 8y ago
  That still seems unnecessarily nitpicky and like it misses the point of the parallel. I'm reminded of the running joke on Californication: "This is Santa Monica Cop. It's my innovative, original series about a hip, streetwise cop who brings his own brand of policing to a much wealthier area than he's used to." 'Oh, like ... Beverly Hills Cop, then?' "Nah, you're not getting it! See, it's in Santa Monica!" Yes, S3 doesn't natively allow retrieval/upload via the FTP protocol. But at the level of abstraction of "what does this service do for me, and why would I want to dig into the docs and incorporate it into my system?", the FTP analogy communicates the use case. "This is S3. It's a way to map a bunch of keys -- which look like directories and naturally follow a kind of hierarchical structure -- to opaque blobs of data, allowing CRUD operations." 'Oh, like an FTP server, then?' "Nah, you're not getting it! See, you talk to it with a different protocol."
mr_toad 8y ago
Dropbox would be a better analogy.
- marpstar 8y ago
  To me, "Dropbox" means "a folder that syncs across your devices"
Aeolun 8y ago
It might be descriptive, but it’s still a terrible name for a product that doesn’t have anything to do with FTP. “Simple Storage Service” is one of those products that they actually named sensibly. I guess the article just had to make up an alternative.

by sadok 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago

Why is he that is on his high horse? It would take watching one or two videos on YouTube or Pluralsight to know on a high level what these services are. If I came to you not knowing anything about the vocabulary used in your field of expertise is that your field’s fault or mine?

thekelvinliu 8y ago

the original comment offers some constructive criticism because the article does have the potential to misinform novice users about what certain services do and the technologies they use. yours is more of a directed personal attack; keep in mind that this is hn. good on you for knowing a priori s3 is not ftp. but i wouldn't expect someone new to development to necessarily know this. as a result, they could have an even harder time figuring out how to do things if, for example, they search for advice on how to connect to the s3 ftp server.

sam0x17 8y ago
That said, I would expect someone learning web development to start out the old way like we all did with static HTML and a simple apache server and work their way up to newer things from there. Not doing this runs the risk of completely missing the point of how everything works.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- eksemplar 8y ago
  To what end? Would you also teach someone binary, assembly and C before you taught them JAVA? I see your approach in a lot of fresh graduates. They’ve learned things from the ground up, which means a good chunk of what they’ve learned is useless historic knowledge that doesn’t actually teach you a lot about how the modern eco-system of the web works. That’s time they could have spent learning docker and authentication security. I mean, it’s often the one guy/girl who’s spent their free time setting up ADFS authentication in AWS for the fun of it, who gets the job. But why wouldn’t you teach them that instead of teaching then legacy shit they’ll never use that also isn’t really that handy for understanding how things work now? We’re supposed to stand on the shoulders of giants, and having struggled with apache or better yet the IIS, is just so utterly useless.
  - sam0x17 8y ago
    I wouldn't teach binary, assembly and C before teaching Java. That's a bad analogy. It's different with the web. You have to understand what clients and servers are, and it's much more clear with a basic apache setup than it is with, say, the node.js ecosystem which blurs that line between client and server to a confusing degree.
  - sam0x17 8y ago
    So you would advocate for, say, learning JSX and react before learning how to use vanilla JS, and maybe a little bit of JQuery to manipulate the DOM, or learning HAML before learning HTML? No wonder the current generation of junior devs is so damn confused.
    - eksemplar 8y ago
      I think you should learn the foundations of JS before you use a JS library, but I see no value in teaching people JQuery before you teach them react.
      - sam0x17 8y ago
        I politely disagree. JQuery is (largely) syntactic sugar over the built in node selection engine and various CSS properties, animations, etc, that are built in and very much a part of normal everyday browser javascript. React is something else entirely, and creates a system parallel to the DOM rather than simply using the DOM the way it was intended. You have to understand the DOM and how it is typically used before you jump to something like React, and a great way to do that is vanilla js with a little JQuery sprinkled in. There is less friction this way, and it demonstrates the impetus for separating javascript from HTML and not using selectors for everything. Otherwise you miss the point of why React is good, and you run the risk of misusing (or in the very least under-appreciating) it. People with all this background still often make terrible React apps, so imagine how bad the people who don't even understand what or why React is will do.

hk__2 8y ago

> Get off your high horse. Please keep the discussion respectful.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lukev 8y ago

Here are some better names for S3 that aren't misleading: - Binary Storage - Blob Storge - File Storage - Reliable Storage FTP is a specific protocol. Hard drives (as a sibling comment mentions) are a specific technology. Our discipline is confusing enough that names should be precise, not analogical.

AlexB138 8y ago
"File Storage" is a bad idea for the same reasons comparing to FTP is. It might work for a near layman, but it can actually communicate misinformation to someone who knows slightly more about storage. Specifically, S3 is Object Storage, as opposed to File or Block Storage. This is why "simple descriptions" are hard. Leaving nuance behind makes a lot of room for confusion.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Since S3 was more or less the first service to have the concept of Object storage, I think we would have been able to deal with ‘File’ storage. Also, I think the difference is more between filesystem and object storage. You are still uploading files to both.
- sam0x17 8y ago
  Yes, I'm still waiting for an "unlimited pay-as-you-go SFTP service" that uses something like S3 as a backend, but you connect with SFTP.
SilasX 8y ago
That still seems unnecessarily nitpicky and like it misses the point of the parallel. I'm reminded of the running joke on Californication: "This is Santa Monica Cop. It's my innovative, original series about a hip, streetwise cop who brings his own brand of policing to a much wealthier area than he's used to." 'Oh, like ... Beverly Hills Cop, then?' "Nah, you're not getting it! See, it's in Santa Monica!" Yes, S3 doesn't natively allow retrieval/upload via the FTP protocol. But at the level of abstraction of "what does this service do for me, and why would I want to dig into the docs and incorporate it into my system?", the FTP analogy communicates the use case. "This is S3. It's a way to map a bunch of keys -- which look like directories and naturally follow a kind of hierarchical structure -- to opaque blobs of data, allowing CRUD operations." 'Oh, like an FTP server, then?' "Nah, you're not getting it! See, you talk to it with a different protocol."

mr_toad 8y ago

Dropbox would be a better analogy.

marpstar 8y ago
To me, "Dropbox" means "a folder that syncs across your devices"

Aeolun 8y ago

It might be descriptive, but it’s still a terrible name for a product that doesn’t have anything to do with FTP. “Simple Storage Service” is one of those products that they actually named sensibly. I guess the article just had to make up an alternative.