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I would argue that it thrives in those most basic cases, and isn't really suited to building truly complex systems. But I also don't think there's anything wron

by _bxg1 6y ago

I would argue that it thrives in those most basic cases, and isn't really suited to building truly complex systems. But I also don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's a use-case for simple pieces that are easy to snap together, and I think that use-case has been greatly under-served because lots of things that aim for it end up as complicated, multi-faceted APIs. You could almost say that micro-services are trying to follow in the Unix tradition. But the problem is that a) they don't really get used in that ideal, small-scale use-case because they're almost always written and consumed internally, not exposed to the public, and b) they do get used in those huge, complex cases where their lego-ness stops being a virtue and starts being a liability.

TAForObvReasons 6y ago
> starts being a liability SaaS is all the rage now, and the business of SaaS is disincentivized from making "lego-like" software. The easier it is to interoperate, arguably the easier it is to replace or reimplement your service. Because a lot of the value of unix tools is derived from their interoperability, they play nice with each other.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  Yeah, that is part of the problem too. Any for-profit corp would love to lock people in, and software megacorps no longer need to interoperate for their own survival. So we see increased lock-in across most of the (commercial) software world. An interesting inverse-example is Slack, which does lots of interop with other services, because it isn't a trillion-dollar company that can attempt to give you everything you need under a single roof.
galaxyLogic 6y ago
> I would argue that it thrives in those most basic cases, and isn't really suited to building truly complex systems Right, just like LEGOS thrive in simple cases, are not suited for building complex systems. That is why the idea of "Software LEGOs" is not reality. Or you can say that Unix Pipes are "software LEGOs", with similar limitations.

by _bxg1 6y ago

TAForObvReasons 6y ago

> starts being a liability SaaS is all the rage now, and the business of SaaS is disincentivized from making "lego-like" software. The easier it is to interoperate, arguably the easier it is to replace or reimplement your service. Because a lot of the value of unix tools is derived from their interoperability, they play nice with each other.

_bxg1 6y ago
Yeah, that is part of the problem too. Any for-profit corp would love to lock people in, and software megacorps no longer need to interoperate for their own survival. So we see increased lock-in across most of the (commercial) software world. An interesting inverse-example is Slack, which does lots of interop with other services, because it isn't a trillion-dollar company that can attempt to give you everything you need under a single roof.

galaxyLogic 6y ago

> I would argue that it thrives in those most basic cases, and isn't really suited to building truly complex systems Right, just like LEGOS thrive in simple cases, are not suited for building complex systems. That is why the idea of "Software LEGOs" is not reality. Or you can say that Unix Pipes are "software LEGOs", with similar limitations.