4 ms·

This line of reasoning is how to tell the difference between a manager and an engineer :)

sam_lowry_ 5y ago
And then, it is not even your own solution, but AWS SES. I have been running mail servers for 20+ years, sending volumes that would have made me multiple times bancrupt if I was doing it via Mailchimp or SES.
- yread 5y ago
  AWS SES is ~1$/10,000 emails. Are you the biggest spammer or just very very poor? Also, 20 years ago running your email server was way easier than now
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    At a previous job, all API errors were emailed to internal email lists. The dev monitoring the API health kept track of system health by looking at the number of unread messages in his inbox. If the number of unread messages went up by < 100,000 in a day, the API was doing fine. If there were a couple million new messages, it means we were having problems. So... I can definitely see how this is plausible, if not uh, "best practice".
    - hpkuarg 5y ago
      This pains me physically to read, haha.
    - aitchnyu 5y ago
      We used this Django feature as a poor man's Sentry years back.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Not to mention the free tier.
- throwaway3699 5y ago
  You could email everyone on Earth for less than the salary of an engineer with SES.
tashoecraft 5y ago
An engineer should recognize what is worth their time. If setting this up takes more than 5hour a year of time to setup and maintain then it’s not worth it. You’ll be wasting money
- jupp0r 5y ago
  Exactly, engineers should be lazy (seriously).
- Zababa 5y ago
  Not eveyone earns 100€ an hour, especially in Europe. The newsletter has a French name ("Le courrier du Hacker"), and in France 45/50k€ a year is a good salary. That's around 14/15€ an hour. Which means ~33 hours a year of maintenance.
  - tstrimple 5y ago
    There are many ways to measure the cost of something like this, but a blind look at average salaries is probably the worst. It doesn't factor in overhead or opportunity cost. In most companies, having a developer spend a week on maintenance of a system which isn't a core business value doesn't make sense. They would be much better utilized on value added work. I guarantee you most engineers could delivery way more than $500 in savings in a week.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      As I said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259123 this isn't a company, it's a newsletter so more of something like a side project. I don't think you could deliver more than 500€ of savings in a week because the email costs were the main costs. I agree with you than within a company this would be different, but this isn't a company.
      - tashoecraft 5y ago
        My comment was targeted to the person I replied to, which I interpreted as "managers only think in terms of time saved where as developers if merely left alone would roll it their own and save time and money", which is ridiculous. An engineer should think like their manager, and the manager should think like the engineer. A cost/benefit should be realized, and I think for the high majority of companies, you should not be rolling your own to save 500/year. A newsletter is so different because merely this blogpost could have generated enough money/attention to warrant doing it, but there's an endless amount of reasoning that can be done to warrant both choices.

And then, it is not even your own solution, but AWS SES. I have been running mail servers for 20+ years, sending volumes that would have made me multiple times bancrupt if I was doing it via Mailchimp or SES.

yread 5y ago
AWS SES is ~1$/10,000 emails. Are you the biggest spammer or just very very poor? Also, 20 years ago running your email server was way easier than now
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  At a previous job, all API errors were emailed to internal email lists. The dev monitoring the API health kept track of system health by looking at the number of unread messages in his inbox. If the number of unread messages went up by < 100,000 in a day, the API was doing fine. If there were a couple million new messages, it means we were having problems. So... I can definitely see how this is plausible, if not uh, "best practice".
  - hpkuarg 5y ago
    This pains me physically to read, haha.
  - aitchnyu 5y ago
    We used this Django feature as a poor man's Sentry years back.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Not to mention the free tier.
throwaway3699 5y ago
You could email everyone on Earth for less than the salary of an engineer with SES.

tashoecraft 5y ago

An engineer should recognize what is worth their time. If setting this up takes more than 5hour a year of time to setup and maintain then it’s not worth it. You’ll be wasting money

jupp0r 5y ago
Exactly, engineers should be lazy (seriously).
Zababa 5y ago
Not eveyone earns 100€ an hour, especially in Europe. The newsletter has a French name ("Le courrier du Hacker"), and in France 45/50k€ a year is a good salary. That's around 14/15€ an hour. Which means ~33 hours a year of maintenance.
- tstrimple 5y ago
  There are many ways to measure the cost of something like this, but a blind look at average salaries is probably the worst. It doesn't factor in overhead or opportunity cost. In most companies, having a developer spend a week on maintenance of a system which isn't a core business value doesn't make sense. They would be much better utilized on value added work. I guarantee you most engineers could delivery way more than $500 in savings in a week.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    As I said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259123 this isn't a company, it's a newsletter so more of something like a side project. I don't think you could deliver more than 500€ of savings in a week because the email costs were the main costs. I agree with you than within a company this would be different, but this isn't a company.
    - tashoecraft 5y ago
      My comment was targeted to the person I replied to, which I interpreted as "managers only think in terms of time saved where as developers if merely left alone would roll it their own and save time and money", which is ridiculous. An engineer should think like their manager, and the manager should think like the engineer. A cost/benefit should be realized, and I think for the high majority of companies, you should not be rolling your own to save 500/year. A newsletter is so different because merely this blogpost could have generated enough money/attention to warrant doing it, but there's an endless amount of reasoning that can be done to warrant both choices.