3 ms·

Come to Erlang/Elixir (and OTP), you get the best of both worlds: - a mono repository - a single codebase for a single system - your micro services are s

by linkdd 4y ago

Come to Erlang/Elixir (and OTP), you get the best of both worlds: - a mono repository - a single codebase for a single system - your micro services are supervisors and gen servers (and a few other processes) in a supervision tree - you decide which erlang node run which apps - your monolith can scale easily thanks to libcluster and horde - ... Also, there is the midpoint between monolith and micro service, and this is called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), you could have: - a DAL (Data Abstraction Layer) service - a Business Logic service (talking to the DAL) - an API (talking to the Business Logic service) - a Frontend (talking to the API) Your API (or gateway, or whatever you want to call it) can serve as glue for third-party services (like Stripe, or anything unrelated to your business). Microservices are a solution for an organizational problem, not a tech one. You need multiple teams to work on the same system without blocking each others. This is a solution for huge corporations, not your 2 pizzas team startup.

d3nj4l 4y ago
This has always been a beautiful draw of the BEAM ecosystem for me, but during my exploration of the space I found that most people were deploying BEAM applications the same way as any other, say, Rails app, and I couldn't find a "getting started" of sorts to deploy desitributed BEAM apps the way you describe. I'd be interested in resources like that, if you have any.
- linkdd 4y ago
  A few months ago I started a series of articles about Elixir, K8s and libcluser[0], but unfortunately I did not have time to continue it yet. If you're using K8s, what I would suggest is: - create multiple releases of your Mix project[1] with specific OTP applications in each - one Docker container per release - one K8s Deployment per release - one headless K8s Service selecting the pods for all your deployments - use libcluster for automated cluster formation Then, with node affinity/tolerations, you can control on which physical node you'll run it (if you want). If you're not using K8s, you can use an Ansible playbook to deploy each distinct release on the target host, and you can use libcluster with a static cluster configuration. This will work the same. [0] - https://medium.com/@david-delassus/elixir-and-kubernetes-a-love-story-721cc6a5c7d5 https://medium.com/@david-delassus/elixir-and-kubernetes-a-l... [1] - https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/config-and-releases.html#releases https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/config-and-r...
- handsaway 4y ago
  I've worked at two companies using Elixir/Phoenix and both of them treated it exactly like a Rails app and there was no discernable BEAM-y ness about it other than how the library worked under the hood. I asked the more senior Elixir devs if we should do something to take advantage of the platform and was met with shrugs.
brightball 4y ago
Ha! Came here to say this but you beat me to it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31328580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31328580
jacquesm 4y ago
Hehe. Technically cheating though, nothing in Erlang will ever be really a monolith. But it's a great solution for the space, it does require a bit of unlearning before you can be really productive with it.
sergiotapia 4y ago
Warning: Compilation times suck for Elixir/Erlang. I'm frustrated almost daily when I make changes to my code and have to wait for 66 .ex files to compile after changing one single line of code in a heex template.
- Kototama 4y ago
  Why do the other files get recompiled? they should be recompiled only if there is change in them.
  - sergiotapia 4y ago
    I have no idea. That's what I'm seeing when working with my project. Literally add one character to one of my liveview modules: Rebuilding... Compiling 67 files (.ex)
    - devoutsalsa 4y ago
      Probably macros.
    - tomjakubowski 4y ago
      It's worth your time to investigate this, it's fixable. Check out mix xref to investigate dependency chains between files in your mix project. In the project I work on, it turned out a module `use`d by almost every controller included a function (totally unused, btw) which, through a little bit of indirection, caused a circular compile-time dependency between all of them. So any change to any controller caused hundreds of files to rebuild.
      - sergiotapia 4y ago
        Never heard of xref. I'll take a look thanks!
- pablodavila 4y ago
  This was improved in a recent release. Did you try with the latest version?
Volrath89 4y ago
"Also, there is the midpoint between monolith and micro service, and this is called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), you could have: - a DAL (Data Abstraction Layer) service - a Business Logic service (talking to the DAL) - an API (talking to the Business Logic service) - a Frontend (talking to the API)" For me what you describled is just a common monolith. I've been developing for 8+ years and have seen this model at every company where I've worked. I really thought this was just the "standard" way that everybody used to develop. I've also worked on a couple of CQRS architectures but the "layering" is still very similar to what you described. I'm curious now, how do other monolith architectures look like if not like this?
- linkdd 4y ago
  In a monolith they may be modules within a single application/binary instead of different services. Nobody said a monolith can't be split in modules :) IMHO, a well-written monolith is like a microservice architecture but without the network layer in between boundaries.

by linkdd 4y ago

d3nj4l 4y ago

This has always been a beautiful draw of the BEAM ecosystem for me, but during my exploration of the space I found that most people were deploying BEAM applications the same way as any other, say, Rails app, and I couldn't find a "getting started" of sorts to deploy desitributed BEAM apps the way you describe. I'd be interested in resources like that, if you have any.

linkdd 4y ago
A few months ago I started a series of articles about Elixir, K8s and libcluser[0], but unfortunately I did not have time to continue it yet. If you're using K8s, what I would suggest is: - create multiple releases of your Mix project[1] with specific OTP applications in each - one Docker container per release - one K8s Deployment per release - one headless K8s Service selecting the pods for all your deployments - use libcluster for automated cluster formation Then, with node affinity/tolerations, you can control on which physical node you'll run it (if you want). If you're not using K8s, you can use an Ansible playbook to deploy each distinct release on the target host, and you can use libcluster with a static cluster configuration. This will work the same. [0] - https://medium.com/@david-delassus/elixir-and-kubernetes-a-love-story-721cc6a5c7d5 https://medium.com/@david-delassus/elixir-and-kubernetes-a-l... [1] - https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/config-and-releases.html#releases https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/config-and-r...
handsaway 4y ago
I've worked at two companies using Elixir/Phoenix and both of them treated it exactly like a Rails app and there was no discernable BEAM-y ness about it other than how the library worked under the hood. I asked the more senior Elixir devs if we should do something to take advantage of the platform and was met with shrugs.

brightball 4y ago

Ha! Came here to say this but you beat me to it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31328580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31328580

jacquesm 4y ago

Hehe. Technically cheating though, nothing in Erlang will ever be really a monolith. But it's a great solution for the space, it does require a bit of unlearning before you can be really productive with it.

sergiotapia 4y ago

Warning: Compilation times suck for Elixir/Erlang. I'm frustrated almost daily when I make changes to my code and have to wait for 66 .ex files to compile after changing one single line of code in a heex template.

Kototama 4y ago
Why do the other files get recompiled? they should be recompiled only if there is change in them.
- sergiotapia 4y ago
  I have no idea. That's what I'm seeing when working with my project. Literally add one character to one of my liveview modules: Rebuilding... Compiling 67 files (.ex)
  - devoutsalsa 4y ago
    Probably macros.
  - tomjakubowski 4y ago
    It's worth your time to investigate this, it's fixable. Check out mix xref to investigate dependency chains between files in your mix project. In the project I work on, it turned out a module `use`d by almost every controller included a function (totally unused, btw) which, through a little bit of indirection, caused a circular compile-time dependency between all of them. So any change to any controller caused hundreds of files to rebuild.
    - sergiotapia 4y ago
      Never heard of xref. I'll take a look thanks!
pablodavila 4y ago
This was improved in a recent release. Did you try with the latest version?

Volrath89 4y ago

"Also, there is the midpoint between monolith and micro service, and this is called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), you could have: - a DAL (Data Abstraction Layer) service - a Business Logic service (talking to the DAL) - an API (talking to the Business Logic service) - a Frontend (talking to the API)" For me what you describled is just a common monolith. I've been developing for 8+ years and have seen this model at every company where I've worked. I really thought this was just the "standard" way that everybody used to develop. I've also worked on a couple of CQRS architectures but the "layering" is still very similar to what you described. I'm curious now, how do other monolith architectures look like if not like this?

linkdd 4y ago
In a monolith they may be modules within a single application/binary instead of different services. Nobody said a monolith can't be split in modules :) IMHO, a well-written monolith is like a microservice architecture but without the network layer in between boundaries.