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> google’s SRE book details much more developer strategies [...] than 12 factor web app I would argue that's precisely the problem. Google are clearly capable

by tombh 5y ago

> google’s SRE book details much more developer strategies [...] than 12 factor web app I would argue that's precisely the problem. Google are clearly capable of doing complex things, but inspiring and nurturing an entire cultural shift is a different category of "complexity", which in the story of Paas, Google did not achieve, they merely exploited it.

joshuamorton 5y ago
You seem to be arguing against yourself here though. Kubernetes is successful, and it doesn't precisely fit the mold of the 12 factor app. It fits an overlapping but distinct, google style, development model. They successfully achieved that shift. I think you're arguing that that's a bad thing. But it's a thing that very much did happen, because kubernetes is successful.
- tombh 5y ago
  My thesis isn't that Kubernetes isn't good, nor that it isn't successful (I use it, recommend it and am deeply grateful for it). Rather I'm disappointed that the documentary doesn't pay respects to the milieu that primed the world for Kubernetes, which to me makes it seem like Google also inspired the mindset and demand for something like Kubernetes, which I personally believe is inaccurate and more importantly unfair on the many innovative projects upon whose shoulders Kubernetes stands.
  - andrewmutz 5y ago
    Didn't Google's Borg precede Heroku by years? Surely its unfair to claim that they "brought little more to the table than money and influence"
    - tombh 5y ago
      I think it's clear in everyone's minds that right from the start Kubernetes was making Docker a first class citizen right? Borg did not use Docker. Borg may well be the technical ancestor of Kubernetes, but Kubernetes owes significantly more to the paradigm shift and cultural revolution that Docker brought. Therefore I believe it's more relevant to consider Docker the inspiration and ancestor of Kubernetes.
      - joshuamorton 5y ago
        Borg didn't use docker containers, but does use containers, they're just a form of containers that are propriety and predate docker by a decade (but like they're functionally really similar to docker containers, at least from the perspective of the orchestration layer). So docker is maybe the thing that allowed kubernetes to catch on, but that's just because the external world was catching up to what borg had been doing for more than a decade, and so kubernetes was Google sticking a decade or more of expertise in container orchestration into the OSS world.
        tombh 5y ago
        I just don't think it's fair to define Docker by merely its ability to isolate resources (that which distinguishes containers from VMs). Docker is an entire ecosystem of best practices, standards, tooling, packaging, documentation and community support. Google caught up to Docker not the other way round.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        > Docker is an entire ecosystem of best practices, standards, tooling, packaging, documentation and community support. When kubernetes was released, the majority of that ecosystem didn't yet exist. Kubernetes influenced many of those best practices, standards, and tooling. So in shaping the ecosystem, yes, docker was catching up to Google. Like I think this would be a reasonable argument if Kubernetes was released today, but it was released only about a year after Docker was. (heck, iirc, even docker as a tool was originally built on LXC, which I think google functionally upstreamed as part of borg hypervisor stuff, but I could be mistaken there. I do know that LXC was based on Google work though: https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/22/decade-container-control-google/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/22/decade-container-con...) Edit: Ok yeah I think I figured it out, cgroups is the borg upstreamed feature (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9506800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9506800), LXC and evenutally docker are built atop cgroups, etc. etc. So the entire modern containerization infra is built atop a feature borg upstreamed.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I think “primed the world” is a much more defensible position than what I originally thought you were arguing (that Heroku influenced Kubernetes directly).
    - tombh 5y ago
      Sorry if I caused any confusion, that's exactly my point. I didn't mean to imply that Heroku directly influenced the design and architecture of Kubernetes.

by tombh 5y ago

joshuamorton 5y ago

You seem to be arguing against yourself here though. Kubernetes is successful, and it doesn't precisely fit the mold of the 12 factor app. It fits an overlapping but distinct, google style, development model. They successfully achieved that shift. I think you're arguing that that's a bad thing. But it's a thing that very much did happen, because kubernetes is successful.

tombh 5y ago
My thesis isn't that Kubernetes isn't good, nor that it isn't successful (I use it, recommend it and am deeply grateful for it). Rather I'm disappointed that the documentary doesn't pay respects to the milieu that primed the world for Kubernetes, which to me makes it seem like Google also inspired the mindset and demand for something like Kubernetes, which I personally believe is inaccurate and more importantly unfair on the many innovative projects upon whose shoulders Kubernetes stands.
- andrewmutz 5y ago
  Didn't Google's Borg precede Heroku by years? Surely its unfair to claim that they "brought little more to the table than money and influence"
  - tombh 5y ago
    I think it's clear in everyone's minds that right from the start Kubernetes was making Docker a first class citizen right? Borg did not use Docker. Borg may well be the technical ancestor of Kubernetes, but Kubernetes owes significantly more to the paradigm shift and cultural revolution that Docker brought. Therefore I believe it's more relevant to consider Docker the inspiration and ancestor of Kubernetes.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      Borg didn't use docker containers, but does use containers, they're just a form of containers that are propriety and predate docker by a decade (but like they're functionally really similar to docker containers, at least from the perspective of the orchestration layer). So docker is maybe the thing that allowed kubernetes to catch on, but that's just because the external world was catching up to what borg had been doing for more than a decade, and so kubernetes was Google sticking a decade or more of expertise in container orchestration into the OSS world.
      - tombh 5y ago
        I just don't think it's fair to define Docker by merely its ability to isolate resources (that which distinguishes containers from VMs). Docker is an entire ecosystem of best practices, standards, tooling, packaging, documentation and community support. Google caught up to Docker not the other way round.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        > Docker is an entire ecosystem of best practices, standards, tooling, packaging, documentation and community support. When kubernetes was released, the majority of that ecosystem didn't yet exist. Kubernetes influenced many of those best practices, standards, and tooling. So in shaping the ecosystem, yes, docker was catching up to Google. Like I think this would be a reasonable argument if Kubernetes was released today, but it was released only about a year after Docker was. (heck, iirc, even docker as a tool was originally built on LXC, which I think google functionally upstreamed as part of borg hypervisor stuff, but I could be mistaken there. I do know that LXC was based on Google work though: https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/22/decade-container-control-google/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/22/decade-container-con...) Edit: Ok yeah I think I figured it out, cgroups is the borg upstreamed feature (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9506800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9506800), LXC and evenutally docker are built atop cgroups, etc. etc. So the entire modern containerization infra is built atop a feature borg upstreamed.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I think “primed the world” is a much more defensible position than what I originally thought you were arguing (that Heroku influenced Kubernetes directly).
  - tombh 5y ago
    Sorry if I caused any confusion, that's exactly my point. I didn't mean to imply that Heroku directly influenced the design and architecture of Kubernetes.