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> And my prior is that we need to understand that, be aaare of it, have a model of what is going on to help develop and debug. If it's a sufficiently robust ab

> And my prior is that we need to understand that, be aaare of it, have a model of what is going on to help develop and debug. If it's a sufficiently robust abstraction, you don't, you just learn the abstraction. Kubernetes has reached that point for many folks. I no longer have a detailed mental model of how my compiler or LLVM works, I just trust that it does. When was the last time you needed to (or were capable of) debugging a bug in your compiler? A couple of human generations of work went into making that happen. Note that it turns out compiling code well, or making a reliable orchestration system, is an enormously complex problem. At some point, the complexity outstrips the ability of even generalists in the field to keep up, yet the systems keep getting more reliable. So in these types of cases, you can either do it yourself poorly (you're an amateur), do it yourself well (congrats, you've become an expert), or delegate. This isn't really limited to computing. I delegate maintenance on my car to a mechanic, while I'm pretty sure a generation ago, everybody (in the US) changed their own oil and understood how the carb worked. Times change.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
The car issue is tempting as an argument clincher. My problem is the army - a lot of their trucks and so forth are not computer controlled this-generation-of-toyota-abstraction but have stayed inefficient but repairable trucks. Because they both need to have trucks that are repairable and also all the computer understands is nice paved roads. Which is what armies don't do. But yes, mostly I am not an army.
- tmottabr 6y ago
  computer being tuned for nice paved roads is not really the problem. If the army needed they have the money to put into developing a car computer specialized in whatever terrain they needed to. Their problem is being easy to repair. Most of the regular people can take their cars to a shop that will have the really basic in stock (ie. oils and filters) and can order most of the rest from a distributor to have delivered same or next day for most cars. You will only take longer to get specialized parts or parts for unusual cars. Also most people can work around not having a car for a few days even if it is a hassle. While army base does have specialized mechanics to properly fix the trucks, if one break in the middle of a mission after engagement the team in that truck need to be able to patch it up and get it going on the field. So the army need trucks that people that are primarily soldiers and not mechanics can patch up "easily" in the field without tons of specialized training, without access to special or weird tools and minimal to no access to parts.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

The car issue is tempting as an argument clincher. My problem is the army - a lot of their trucks and so forth are not computer controlled this-generation-of-toyota-abstraction but have stayed inefficient but repairable trucks. Because they both need to have trucks that are repairable and also all the computer understands is nice paved roads. Which is what armies don't do. But yes, mostly I am not an army.

tmottabr 6y ago
computer being tuned for nice paved roads is not really the problem. If the army needed they have the money to put into developing a car computer specialized in whatever terrain they needed to. Their problem is being easy to repair. Most of the regular people can take their cars to a shop that will have the really basic in stock (ie. oils and filters) and can order most of the rest from a distributor to have delivered same or next day for most cars. You will only take longer to get specialized parts or parts for unusual cars. Also most people can work around not having a car for a few days even if it is a hassle. While army base does have specialized mechanics to properly fix the trucks, if one break in the middle of a mission after engagement the team in that truck need to be able to patch it up and get it going on the field. So the army need trucks that people that are primarily soldiers and not mechanics can patch up "easily" in the field without tons of specialized training, without access to special or weird tools and minimal to no access to parts.