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I'd like to request that nobody else make any more damn infrastructure tools that require writing code in order to use it, or require reading six manuals. I don

I'd like to request that nobody else make any more damn infrastructure tools that require writing code in order to use it, or require reading six manuals. I don't want to spend the rest of my life writing and editing glue and cruft, or spending two weeks researching and writing elaborate config files by hand just to make some software run. It's like the infrastructure version of fine woodworking - building dovetails and screwless joints by hand, using chisels and hand planes and card scrapers and shit, to build a box. It may be "fun", but it's also needlessly complicated and time-consuming. Give me the power tools, pocket hole jigs, torx screws, nail guns, square clamps. Yes, the dovetails will make a more sturdy box - but do you need a box with dovetails? Probably not.

blandflakes 7y ago
I'm with you in that these tools are incomplete and insufficiently abstract - what would you like instead? Just a sufficiently robust GUI or CLI surface area?
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  For example, let's say I want something to "build infrastructure". That's really way too generic to be useful. What I actually want is something to create a cluster in AWS to run my app, or "create me a Fargate ECS cluster using R53, ACM, ALB, ECR, Lambda, CodeBuild, CloudWatch, SG, VPC, and IAM". If I feed that thing my AWS account's root credentials, it should first go through a list of default variables, explaining each to me and why I might want to change them. Then it should just create all of the above for me, and probably save it all as code. Next, I create a repository with my app and a Dockerfile. I then run a "hook up my git repo webhook and deploy my app right now" script, passing it my github creds. That should create a webhook into CodeBuild where my app is turned into a container, pushed to ECR, and then deployed into the Fargate container, as well as creating any CloudWatch alerts needed. That's what I call a "product solution": an opinionated, complete solution that does everything I need for me, with a very light user interface and guidance on how to use it. Probably 95% of the above is two custom Terraform modules and some glue, and I should only have to answer like three questions by default. If Terraform itself shipped with the above complete solution, that would be what I'm looking for. But I'm not aware of a catalog of solutions like that. Occasionally random people will publish partial modules on GitHub, but those usually need more modules and glue to actually work. So I'm basically looking for "no assembly required" solutions with the option to modify them later.
  - blandflakes 7y ago
    Got it. Yeah my primary complaint about most of the components I've interacted with recently has been too many knobs, exposed through YAML, with either too few opinions or insane opinions.
tilolebo 7y ago
What's your example of an infrastructure tool you like?

blandflakes 7y ago

I'm with you in that these tools are incomplete and insufficiently abstract - what would you like instead? Just a sufficiently robust GUI or CLI surface area?

peterwwillis 7y ago
For example, let's say I want something to "build infrastructure". That's really way too generic to be useful. What I actually want is something to create a cluster in AWS to run my app, or "create me a Fargate ECS cluster using R53, ACM, ALB, ECR, Lambda, CodeBuild, CloudWatch, SG, VPC, and IAM". If I feed that thing my AWS account's root credentials, it should first go through a list of default variables, explaining each to me and why I might want to change them. Then it should just create all of the above for me, and probably save it all as code. Next, I create a repository with my app and a Dockerfile. I then run a "hook up my git repo webhook and deploy my app right now" script, passing it my github creds. That should create a webhook into CodeBuild where my app is turned into a container, pushed to ECR, and then deployed into the Fargate container, as well as creating any CloudWatch alerts needed. That's what I call a "product solution": an opinionated, complete solution that does everything I need for me, with a very light user interface and guidance on how to use it. Probably 95% of the above is two custom Terraform modules and some glue, and I should only have to answer like three questions by default. If Terraform itself shipped with the above complete solution, that would be what I'm looking for. But I'm not aware of a catalog of solutions like that. Occasionally random people will publish partial modules on GitHub, but those usually need more modules and glue to actually work. So I'm basically looking for "no assembly required" solutions with the option to modify them later.
- blandflakes 7y ago
  Got it. Yeah my primary complaint about most of the components I've interacted with recently has been too many knobs, exposed through YAML, with either too few opinions or insane opinions.

tilolebo 7y ago

What's your example of an infrastructure tool you like?