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Great use of metaphor to make a complex and subtle technical concept into a readily-understood one-liner.
by gyulai 4y ago
Great use of metaphor to make a complex and subtle technical concept into a readily-understood one-liner.
- soulofmischief 4y agoPets, not cattle is the general mantra for configuration management systems. Personally I use Ansible for fleet management.
- gyulai 4y ago> Pets, not cattle is the general mantra for configuration management systems. Oh, I didn't realize it was in widespread use. But still. Someone thought of it, and it's great use of language.
- soulofmischief 4y agoTotally agree, it's the kind of sentence which immediately imparts of knowledge and gives you a lot to chew on.
- mananaysiempre 4y agoOr rather the other way around (usually, though not here)?
- soulofmischief 4y agoDefinitely the other way around, whoops!
- lexandstuff 4y agoYou mean Cattle, not Pets is the general mantra, right? Or have things changed a lot since I was last doing Ops?
- soulofmischief 4y agoOh you're totally right, and I should stop posting on HN from my phone while out at the bar. :)
- LAC-Tech 4y ago"Cattle, not pets" is not a great analogy in the first place. Maybe I only talk to smaller farmers, but they definitely care if a cow dies. Maybe not as much as if the dog dies, but it's a sign something is seriously wrong with their operation.
- hnlmorg 4y agoAnalogies aren’t meant to be literally equal. They’re just a convenient way of expressing a complex problem in a simpler way, which the cattle vs pets analogy does well.
- actually_a_dog 4y agoYou just said it: they care if a cow dies because something is wrong with their operation, not because they care about that particular animal per se (usually). That's the exact opposite of why someone cares when their dog dies.
- literalAardvark 4y agoMy grandparents wouldn't have given a single hoot over the dog dying. The cows though? Those were important.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoThey wouldn't have given a hoot if a herding dog dies? Or if they're not companion animals or working, why are they there?
- literalAardvark 4y agoThey were guard and hunting dogs. Noisemakers, essentially. Herding was mostly done by people, often kids, and fences, though some neighbors did use herding dogs. I can understand how trained herding dogs can also be important, but it was certainly not my experience in the countryside.