3 ms·

This happens with every technology stack from steam engines to software. There was a time when programmers could solder together an ALU using transistor gates.

doctor_eval 6y ago
Well yeah I could probably have done that with some 7400 series TTL ... but the MIPS wouldn't nearly cut it in today's world :)
tluyben2 6y ago
It might be the same with 'trains' (steam engines); I don't know much about that. But losing skills in 'the cloud' makes you prisoner to PaaS/SaaS providers; if these skills almost completely disappear (let's say, akin to your transistor gates, that almost no-one can install or maintain server setups anymore), the cloud providers really can do whatever they want price wise. For instance, if a cloud provider misconfigures something at scale in this great future, there is no way for anyone to verify that; it might be that you are paying 1000x what you should be paying for a particular database query that triggers a perfect storm in your set-up. As no-one in your company knows and no-one can check what or even if this is going on, it'll be considered 'normal' and you just pay. This is already happening, at scale, but not due to the cloud provider's fault, but because people are already not learning skills. If I would have $100 for every missing index I find per month in client's setups, I would be working a few hours/month for a very nice wage. Heck, most startup databases I see these days don't have any indexes at all; and then they wonder why they are paying $10k/month at aws while I can get them the same or better performance for a few bucks/month on a vps. Not because I'm so smart, but just doing everything 'low-level' wrong because no-one simply knows anymore how a database works (it's the cloud! we shouldn't have to!). It's not restricted to relational dbs either; sometimes I cry when I see dynamodb setups made by people who think this is just the cloud way of working; 'throw in whatever data, it'll always optimise itself'. So this is already happening at many companies and it's getting worse.
- random314 6y ago
  Similar thing happened in the past when application developers (most apps were written assembly in the past) built a dependency on instruction sets. If the computer manufacturer underperforms in future years, you are stuck. This dynamic can never be erased even as we keep climbing higher on the stack.

doctor_eval 6y ago

Well yeah I could probably have done that with some 7400 series TTL ... but the MIPS wouldn't nearly cut it in today's world :)

tluyben2 6y ago

It might be the same with 'trains' (steam engines); I don't know much about that. But losing skills in 'the cloud' makes you prisoner to PaaS/SaaS providers; if these skills almost completely disappear (let's say, akin to your transistor gates, that almost no-one can install or maintain server setups anymore), the cloud providers really can do whatever they want price wise. For instance, if a cloud provider misconfigures something at scale in this great future, there is no way for anyone to verify that; it might be that you are paying 1000x what you should be paying for a particular database query that triggers a perfect storm in your set-up. As no-one in your company knows and no-one can check what or even if this is going on, it'll be considered 'normal' and you just pay. This is already happening, at scale, but not due to the cloud provider's fault, but because people are already not learning skills. If I would have $100 for every missing index I find per month in client's setups, I would be working a few hours/month for a very nice wage. Heck, most startup databases I see these days don't have any indexes at all; and then they wonder why they are paying $10k/month at aws while I can get them the same or better performance for a few bucks/month on a vps. Not because I'm so smart, but just doing everything 'low-level' wrong because no-one simply knows anymore how a database works (it's the cloud! we shouldn't have to!). It's not restricted to relational dbs either; sometimes I cry when I see dynamodb setups made by people who think this is just the cloud way of working; 'throw in whatever data, it'll always optimise itself'. So this is already happening at many companies and it's getting worse.

random314 6y ago
Similar thing happened in the past when application developers (most apps were written assembly in the past) built a dependency on instruction sets. If the computer manufacturer underperforms in future years, you are stuck. This dynamic can never be erased even as we keep climbing higher on the stack.