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I was an intern at AWS this past summer(and will be returning as a new grad in May) and this article is not accurate based on my experience. My code (which

I was an intern at AWS this past summer(and will be returning as a new grad in May) and this article is not accurate based on my experience. My code (which was part of our team's actual production system, not a toy project) ran on EC2 instances in an autoscaling group. There was no manually provisioning servers. I worked with a Kinesis Stream and several other resources and there was a way for us to programmatically retrieve the names of the resources. My impression was the system we used to find a resource name works for all AWS resources so I imagine you could get the name of a load balancer this way as well. Finally, I'll just say my team worked entirely in Python. Maybe that was an exception, but it is certainly sufficient to directly falsify the statement that "internally, at Amazon, you can't even use a language other than Java." (How would the author even know this? Was he in on the S-team meeting where it was declared that all non java users get a pip?)

umanwizard 8y ago
I can confirm that the claim "you can't even use a language other than Java" is completely false. Java is often the best tool for the job because of how much institutional inertia there is behind it, but certainly nobody will stop a team from using a better tool. PHP is banned at Amazon, and that's the exception that proves the rule: a language being banned is so unusual that I'm aware specifically of the example of PHP.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- _msw_ 8y ago
  And, yet, there are some places where PHP is used (under explicit conditions and exceptions).
tanilama 8y ago
The Java claim is just factually false. Java/C++/Python/Ruby/Go/Perl/Scala, even Rust, are used in Amazon for various projects. What might be true is that, consider how critical your service would be, the more it is, people will lean towards to more conservative/mature/enterprise-ish languages, not exotic ones, because that inherently means risk. And Java is the go-to option under that consideration, just because, it is Java, the least controversial choice if you had asked me. But Amazon comparing with other companies I worked with, except extremely small startup, where tech guidance is like non-existent, the least restrictive when it comes to languages. It fits the Amazon's self perception, it is pragmatic, non opinionated, moral-agnostic. It cares about customer, because customer means potential of eventual profit. However you achieved that, is not Amazon's concern.
- amazon_throw 8y ago
  Plus, you know, https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ We do actually vend a JDK. Yes, it's conservative. It's also necessary.
- throwaway504 8y ago
  The L8 manager of our org declared that all projects must be on the JVM, and if the language wasn't Java, then we would need to submit a six pager explaining why. Perhaps he was just being conservative, but to me there's something off-putting when those types of decisions come from managers rather than from the engineers. That said, our org did manage to have a few projects that aren't Java, so I guess I would have to concede that the Java claim is factually false as well. But it sure doesn't feel like I am empowered to choose something other than Java.

umanwizard 8y ago

I can confirm that the claim "you can't even use a language other than Java" is completely false. Java is often the best tool for the job because of how much institutional inertia there is behind it, but certainly nobody will stop a team from using a better tool. PHP is banned at Amazon, and that's the exception that proves the rule: a language being banned is so unusual that I'm aware specifically of the example of PHP.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
_msw_ 8y ago
And, yet, there are some places where PHP is used (under explicit conditions and exceptions).

tanilama 8y ago

The Java claim is just factually false. Java/C++/Python/Ruby/Go/Perl/Scala, even Rust, are used in Amazon for various projects. What might be true is that, consider how critical your service would be, the more it is, people will lean towards to more conservative/mature/enterprise-ish languages, not exotic ones, because that inherently means risk. And Java is the go-to option under that consideration, just because, it is Java, the least controversial choice if you had asked me. But Amazon comparing with other companies I worked with, except extremely small startup, where tech guidance is like non-existent, the least restrictive when it comes to languages. It fits the Amazon's self perception, it is pragmatic, non opinionated, moral-agnostic. It cares about customer, because customer means potential of eventual profit. However you achieved that, is not Amazon's concern.

amazon_throw 8y ago
Plus, you know, https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ We do actually vend a JDK. Yes, it's conservative. It's also necessary.
throwaway504 8y ago
The L8 manager of our org declared that all projects must be on the JVM, and if the language wasn't Java, then we would need to submit a six pager explaining why. Perhaps he was just being conservative, but to me there's something off-putting when those types of decisions come from managers rather than from the engineers. That said, our org did manage to have a few projects that aren't Java, so I guess I would have to concede that the Java claim is factually false as well. But it sure doesn't feel like I am empowered to choose something other than Java.