4 ms·

How are any of these simpler than "Get VM, install server, rsync files"? Why is the solution always "sign up for a proprietary service that might not exist next

by swidi 4y ago

How are any of these simpler than "Get VM, install server, rsync files"? Why is the solution always "sign up for a proprietary service that might not exist next year and rig up a bunch of fragile webhooks"? Also, I don't use Git or Github.

dorfsmay 4y ago
* no need to install and configure OS * No need to install and configure web server * No need to setup firewall * No need to main and patch above components every day * No need to upgrade the OS every few months/years I have not used mercurial in close to a decade, but from what I can remember you could push to a git server from the mercurial client.
digianarchist 4y ago
I'm an SRE and I'll say that all of these services are far simpler than configuring, maintaining and monitoring a VM. If you want to maintain your Mercurial setup then consider S3 + Cloudfront.
kadoban 4y ago
It's simpler from a certain point of view, namely one where you don't want to have to maintain the VM. It's more complicated because you need to know more random tech that I bet you don't want to learn. Which is fine, it's really not necessary. By the way, you should learn git sometime. Or there's a couple other VCSes that are somewhat known, but git is both good and has good networking effects (everyone uses it).
- swidi 4y ago
  I prefer Mercurial, and as a hobbyist I can afford to stay with it. I know Git has GitHub and all the connectivity of that, but I just truly dislike Git.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    That works, as long as you know one of them.
  - raffraffraff 4y ago
    Ah, I didn't see that you use mercurial instead of git when I made my last comment. I'd love to be able to make red-line decisions like this regardless, no matter what. For example, I absolutely hate MacOS and would love to say "hard no" to any job offer if they insist that I use MacOS, regardless of job fit or TC. But ultimately, I back down once they show me the money, and find myself using it anyway.
raffraffraff 4y ago
I agree about the fragile frameworks but not the rest. In this case I'd say that "simple" is a product of familiarity, manual steps, and future maintenance. "Get a VM" also means "install stuff on a VM", "secure a VM", "monitor load, memory, disk space on a VM" and "manage a VM into the future, upgrading the host OS and fixing whatever breaks". Is rsync easier than git? Maybe, but it doesn't have version control (which is nice to have). I think the git suggestions are based on the assumption that only a tiny number of people could do VM setup, webserver config, rsync etc but couldn't do git add, commit and push. Personally, I use Cloudflare because it handles DNS, CDN and is basically hands-off after setup.

by swidi 4y ago

dorfsmay 4y ago

* no need to install and configure OS * No need to install and configure web server * No need to setup firewall * No need to main and patch above components every day * No need to upgrade the OS every few months/years I have not used mercurial in close to a decade, but from what I can remember you could push to a git server from the mercurial client.

digianarchist 4y ago

I'm an SRE and I'll say that all of these services are far simpler than configuring, maintaining and monitoring a VM. If you want to maintain your Mercurial setup then consider S3 + Cloudfront.

kadoban 4y ago

It's simpler from a certain point of view, namely one where you don't want to have to maintain the VM. It's more complicated because you need to know more random tech that I bet you don't want to learn. Which is fine, it's really not necessary. By the way, you should learn git sometime. Or there's a couple other VCSes that are somewhat known, but git is both good and has good networking effects (everyone uses it).

swidi 4y ago
I prefer Mercurial, and as a hobbyist I can afford to stay with it. I know Git has GitHub and all the connectivity of that, but I just truly dislike Git.
- kadoban 4y ago
  That works, as long as you know one of them.
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  Ah, I didn't see that you use mercurial instead of git when I made my last comment. I'd love to be able to make red-line decisions like this regardless, no matter what. For example, I absolutely hate MacOS and would love to say "hard no" to any job offer if they insist that I use MacOS, regardless of job fit or TC. But ultimately, I back down once they show me the money, and find myself using it anyway.

raffraffraff 4y ago

I agree about the fragile frameworks but not the rest. In this case I'd say that "simple" is a product of familiarity, manual steps, and future maintenance. "Get a VM" also means "install stuff on a VM", "secure a VM", "monitor load, memory, disk space on a VM" and "manage a VM into the future, upgrading the host OS and fixing whatever breaks". Is rsync easier than git? Maybe, but it doesn't have version control (which is nice to have). I think the git suggestions are based on the assumption that only a tiny number of people could do VM setup, webserver config, rsync etc but couldn't do git add, commit and push. Personally, I use Cloudflare because it handles DNS, CDN and is basically hands-off after setup.