4 ms·

I am an IaC advocate. I see articles like this as a barrier to meaningful IaC adoption. > In the tech industry, we can be guilty of the same crime sometimes. C

I am an IaC advocate. I see articles like this as a barrier to meaningful IaC adoption. > In the tech industry, we can be guilty of the same crime sometimes. Certain practices get ingrained into the profession to the point where we forget exactly why we did it in the first place. But in school he hadn't known why he did it in the first plave. And more often in tech I see cargo cult practices that people don't understand but follow some steps that may or may not "work." Often these are misunderstood "best practices." He goes on to say: > Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice I really feel should be implemented everywhere it is relevant. It is good common practice, the popularity of which continues to grow. Which is exactly how cargo cult practices spread. What do they do? How do the do it? I dunno but everyone seems to be doing something and I think it must be like FOO. It's also incredibly dangerous to say we should follow a practice because of how it "feels." Does it "feel stable" or "feel understandable" or "feel fast?" Who cares. Show me the value, don't try to give me the tingles!

cube2222 5y ago
To be fair, the author does provide arguments for why Infrastructure as Code should be used, in the next few paragraphs.
iamtew 5y ago
The real world don't care about feelings.Feelings are extremely subjective making these kind of statements quite vague. As a person with alexithymia, this is so confusing, I have no idea what "feels good" is supposed to mean. I know it's not bad, but that's a big spectrum of meaning. Good doesn't mean great or brilliant either. Just confusing. Emotional blindness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia
- falcolas 5y ago
  FWIW, "feel" and "good" as used in this article is not about emotions; it's more of a shortcut that means "Do I trust that this is doing what I expect it to regarding (safety | stability | understandability)?" "Feel": "I trust." "Good": "Does what I expect it to."
  - NateEag 5y ago
    "Trust" is (or at least can be) an emotion.
    - politician 5y ago
      Trust is the faith that the subject won’t betray you or your interests despite being in a position to do so. It’s a belief, not an emotion.
      - NateEag 5y ago
        Hmm, yeah, good point. I think you're right. I guess the emotions associated with trust might be "peace" or "confidence". Thanks for correcting my error!
- NateEag 5y ago
  Physical reality is barely changed by peoples' emotions (small shifts in their biochemistry). Physical reality is very often changed significantly by the choices people make, which are rooted in their emotions. So, while the universe as such may not care about emotions, they still matter as long as you're interacting with humans (including oneself). FWIW, I'd not heard of alexithymia before, and I now am thinking I may have had it most of my life. I've gotten much better at recognizing emotions in myself and others over the past two years through a combination of prayer, therapy, introspection (a skeptic might argue my prayer was just an obscured form of introspection), and reading (Non-violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg helped me immensely). I've seen the world become much more comprehensible as this has changed - other humans are a big part of the world, given how dependent we all are on civilization for survival and thriving, and as hinted above, I now understand my own actions and choices much better too. Not being able to recognize my emotions didn't mean I had none.
rocqua 5y ago
> It's also incredibly dangerous to say we should follow a practice because of how it "feels." Does it "feel stable" or "feel understandable" or "feel fast?" Who cares. Show me the value, don't try to give me the tingles! I disagree. First of all, how something feels says something about people's intuition which is a decent indicator of reality. More importantly though, how something feels affects how (or even if) people will use it. A system which 'feels' wrong will be under-used and generally worked around. This makes it a bad system in the real world, regardless of 'how great it would be if everyone used it'. It's similar with vaccines. The fact that to many people a vaccine 'felt wrong' made the vaccine actually less effective at blocking the spread of corona. The value of something depends very much on 'how it feels'.

cube2222 5y ago

To be fair, the author does provide arguments for why Infrastructure as Code should be used, in the next few paragraphs.

iamtew 5y ago

The real world don't care about feelings.Feelings are extremely subjective making these kind of statements quite vague. As a person with alexithymia, this is so confusing, I have no idea what "feels good" is supposed to mean. I know it's not bad, but that's a big spectrum of meaning. Good doesn't mean great or brilliant either. Just confusing. Emotional blindness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia

falcolas 5y ago
FWIW, "feel" and "good" as used in this article is not about emotions; it's more of a shortcut that means "Do I trust that this is doing what I expect it to regarding (safety | stability | understandability)?" "Feel": "I trust." "Good": "Does what I expect it to."
- NateEag 5y ago
  "Trust" is (or at least can be) an emotion.
  - politician 5y ago
    Trust is the faith that the subject won’t betray you or your interests despite being in a position to do so. It’s a belief, not an emotion.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      Hmm, yeah, good point. I think you're right. I guess the emotions associated with trust might be "peace" or "confidence". Thanks for correcting my error!
NateEag 5y ago
Physical reality is barely changed by peoples' emotions (small shifts in their biochemistry). Physical reality is very often changed significantly by the choices people make, which are rooted in their emotions. So, while the universe as such may not care about emotions, they still matter as long as you're interacting with humans (including oneself). FWIW, I'd not heard of alexithymia before, and I now am thinking I may have had it most of my life. I've gotten much better at recognizing emotions in myself and others over the past two years through a combination of prayer, therapy, introspection (a skeptic might argue my prayer was just an obscured form of introspection), and reading (Non-violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg helped me immensely). I've seen the world become much more comprehensible as this has changed - other humans are a big part of the world, given how dependent we all are on civilization for survival and thriving, and as hinted above, I now understand my own actions and choices much better too. Not being able to recognize my emotions didn't mean I had none.

rocqua 5y ago

> It's also incredibly dangerous to say we should follow a practice because of how it "feels." Does it "feel stable" or "feel understandable" or "feel fast?" Who cares. Show me the value, don't try to give me the tingles! I disagree. First of all, how something feels says something about people's intuition which is a decent indicator of reality. More importantly though, how something feels affects how (or even if) people will use it. A system which 'feels' wrong will be under-used and generally worked around. This makes it a bad system in the real world, regardless of 'how great it would be if everyone used it'. It's similar with vaccines. The fact that to many people a vaccine 'felt wrong' made the vaccine actually less effective at blocking the spread of corona. The value of something depends very much on 'how it feels'.