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It’s bewildering to me how Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare and others have convinced the modern crop of developers this approach is fundamentally different than CDN

It’s bewildering to me how Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare and others have convinced the modern crop of developers this approach is fundamentally different than CDN caching and that “serverless” somehow doesn’t qualify as backend.

rglover 5y ago
Convenience blinds.
- dreyfan 5y ago
  Yeah I suppose? I think the “git push and it’s magically live” aspect is great. I just wish modern devs understood how the web actually functions so that understanding is transferable instead of thinking it’s all magic.
  - rglover 5y ago
    Unless they have a personal desire to do so, they won't. Most developers are driven by what others are doing and if everyone is building on Netlify and using Cloudflare Workers, they'll just do that and assume they understand. This will inevitably end with a whole lot of people not having a clue how to do what they think they know how to do when these companies go poof (or are swallowed by private equity).
    - nostrebored 5y ago
      If they go poof, competitors will take their space. People have decided managed services are worth the cost. Building them is not inordinately complicated. There will always be contenders.
      - rglover 5y ago
        If there are people who understand how to build the replacement. This is a degenerative spiral. I'll be wrong for ten years and then all of a sudden? There's no one around to Superman in and save the day.
- virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
  So things shouldn't be simpler, faster and easier to use?
  - rglover 5y ago
    They should/can, but not at the expense of understanding how the underlying system works. Right now, the major players significantly abstract away from "how the web works" which means newer developers don't understand and are being led into a trap. Cute marketing terms like "serverless" confuse developers into thinking there is no server (or even worse, that there's such a thing as a "serverless developer"). I'm working on this problem right now: https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick. I know I sound like a curmudgeon when I say this stuff but it's a serious problem that will have dire consequences later (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko).
    - gk1 5y ago
      Have you actually run into developers who think "serverless" means there is no server anywhere? Does anyone think "cloud" means there are no servers? I think -- and maybe I'm wrong -- it's obvious that of course there's a server, it's just not mine to care for.
      - rglover 5y ago
        Yes, I've worked with them 1-on-1.
    - bnchrch 5y ago
      I do love that this is literally old man yells at the cloud. Though in general our profession is built on and about building abstractions. I don’t expect every 2010s web dev to know the intricacies of memory allocation, nor do I expect every 2020s web dev to know about nginx config or asset cache invalidation. It’s handy sure, but required no. They’re all abstractions that you learn if and when necessary.
      - 5y ago
Destiner 5y ago
Personally, the CDN aspect of Netlify didn't bother me much at the time. The killer feature was the "git push to deploy". Compared to S3, that was ground breaking.
mrkurt 5y ago
Netlify and Vercel are frontend developer productivity and workflow tools. The value is not "CDN caching".
- dreyfan 5y ago
  Does it solve any problems which aren’t self-inflicted by the convoluted JS ecosystem and toolchain?
  - mrkurt 5y ago
    Yes.
    - dreyfan 5y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/PF7uxDY.png https://i.imgur.com/PF7uxDY.png What about end user experience?
      - mrkurt 5y ago
        Also yes. That screenshot doesn't have anything to do with Netlify, it's our own busted app release on our own servers. :D
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        dreyfan 5y ago
        Obviously but you’re in the same pool of “commit and magically deployed globally” service offering, except I think you’re actually providing value (deploying backend services alongside static content) as opposed to a commit hook and a cache update.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tbarn 5y ago
pc86 5y ago
Destliner, you are shadow banned and vouching has stopped working for me so I can't reply, but "git push to deploy" is just CI/CD. I'm not sure what's groundbreaking about that, other than the fact that someone else set it up?
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
Weird comment. You kind of miss the point entirely. Serverless is about scale — not about not having a backend. It’s a CDN with a backend which is attractive. Effortless, infinitely scalable, dynamic web apps.
- dreyfan 5y ago
  > Effortless, infinitely scalable, dynamic web apps. That’s awfully reminiscent of the MongoDB meme.
gk1 5y ago
Maybe there's something to this that you don't see? Have you spoken with Netlify/Vercel/Cloudflare users to learn why they love those services so much?
handrous 5y ago
They're basically CPanel on steroids (=orchestrating a whole bunch of servers/services instead of a single server) with low-code features (workers) built in. You can go from nothing to having a demo for some small application in a day or two, while hardly leaving their site. For cloudflare, for example: register domain, set up DNS, deploy "web app" UI as a site, write a quick & dirty API in workers (you can even write it all in-browser!), letting CF handle all the routing and such. They're similarly pointy-clicky one-stop-shop for fairly complex external and internal networking, on high-tier plans, at least for Cloudflare. I am very aware of the risks with things like this, but the appeal is clear.
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
It's not fundamentally different. It is a nice, managed solution for it where someone else takes care of it for you. It doesn't need to be revolutionary to be worth paying for.

rglover 5y ago

Convenience blinds.

dreyfan 5y ago
Yeah I suppose? I think the “git push and it’s magically live” aspect is great. I just wish modern devs understood how the web actually functions so that understanding is transferable instead of thinking it’s all magic.
- rglover 5y ago
  Unless they have a personal desire to do so, they won't. Most developers are driven by what others are doing and if everyone is building on Netlify and using Cloudflare Workers, they'll just do that and assume they understand. This will inevitably end with a whole lot of people not having a clue how to do what they think they know how to do when these companies go poof (or are swallowed by private equity).
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    If they go poof, competitors will take their space. People have decided managed services are worth the cost. Building them is not inordinately complicated. There will always be contenders.
    - rglover 5y ago
      If there are people who understand how to build the replacement. This is a degenerative spiral. I'll be wrong for ten years and then all of a sudden? There's no one around to Superman in and save the day.
virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
So things shouldn't be simpler, faster and easier to use?
- rglover 5y ago
  They should/can, but not at the expense of understanding how the underlying system works. Right now, the major players significantly abstract away from "how the web works" which means newer developers don't understand and are being led into a trap. Cute marketing terms like "serverless" confuse developers into thinking there is no server (or even worse, that there's such a thing as a "serverless developer"). I'm working on this problem right now: https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick. I know I sound like a curmudgeon when I say this stuff but it's a serious problem that will have dire consequences later (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko).
  - gk1 5y ago
    Have you actually run into developers who think "serverless" means there is no server anywhere? Does anyone think "cloud" means there are no servers? I think -- and maybe I'm wrong -- it's obvious that of course there's a server, it's just not mine to care for.
    - rglover 5y ago
      Yes, I've worked with them 1-on-1.
  - bnchrch 5y ago
    I do love that this is literally old man yells at the cloud. Though in general our profession is built on and about building abstractions. I don’t expect every 2010s web dev to know the intricacies of memory allocation, nor do I expect every 2020s web dev to know about nginx config or asset cache invalidation. It’s handy sure, but required no. They’re all abstractions that you learn if and when necessary.
    - 5y ago

Destiner 5y ago

Personally, the CDN aspect of Netlify didn't bother me much at the time. The killer feature was the "git push to deploy". Compared to S3, that was ground breaking.

mrkurt 5y ago

Netlify and Vercel are frontend developer productivity and workflow tools. The value is not "CDN caching".

dreyfan 5y ago
Does it solve any problems which aren’t self-inflicted by the convoluted JS ecosystem and toolchain?
- mrkurt 5y ago
  Yes.
  - dreyfan 5y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/PF7uxDY.png https://i.imgur.com/PF7uxDY.png What about end user experience?
    - mrkurt 5y ago
      Also yes. That screenshot doesn't have anything to do with Netlify, it's our own busted app release on our own servers. :D
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - dreyfan 5y ago
        Obviously but you’re in the same pool of “commit and magically deployed globally” service offering, except I think you’re actually providing value (deploying backend services alongside static content) as opposed to a commit hook and a cache update.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tbarn 5y ago

pc86 5y ago

Destliner, you are shadow banned and vouching has stopped working for me so I can't reply, but "git push to deploy" is just CI/CD. I'm not sure what's groundbreaking about that, other than the fact that someone else set it up?

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago

Weird comment. You kind of miss the point entirely. Serverless is about scale — not about not having a backend. It’s a CDN with a backend which is attractive. Effortless, infinitely scalable, dynamic web apps.

dreyfan 5y ago
> Effortless, infinitely scalable, dynamic web apps. That’s awfully reminiscent of the MongoDB meme.

gk1 5y ago

Maybe there's something to this that you don't see? Have you spoken with Netlify/Vercel/Cloudflare users to learn why they love those services so much?

handrous 5y ago

They're basically CPanel on steroids (=orchestrating a whole bunch of servers/services instead of a single server) with low-code features (workers) built in. You can go from nothing to having a demo for some small application in a day or two, while hardly leaving their site. For cloudflare, for example: register domain, set up DNS, deploy "web app" UI as a site, write a quick & dirty API in workers (you can even write it all in-browser!), letting CF handle all the routing and such. They're similarly pointy-clicky one-stop-shop for fairly complex external and internal networking, on high-tier plans, at least for Cloudflare. I am very aware of the risks with things like this, but the appeal is clear.

TheCoelacanth 5y ago

It's not fundamentally different. It is a nice, managed solution for it where someone else takes care of it for you. It doesn't need to be revolutionary to be worth paying for.