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Casey Muratory was spot on about using containers was not a solution to any problem, but just more of the same complexity increase. Full presentation at: The On

Casey Muratory was spot on about using containers was not a solution to any problem, but just more of the same complexity increase. Full presentation at: The Only unbreakable Law https://youtu.be/5IUj1EZwpJY https://youtu.be/5IUj1EZwpJY

dns_snek 3y ago
He says the same about virtual machines, package managers, engines and even libraries. That presentation is a borderline-psychotic rant unless viewed through a very narrow lens where the only thing that matters is maximum-performance systems programming. He's disregarding every productivity improvement in pursuit of maximum performance. He makes that very clear, and in that context it makes sense, but most people won't have the same priorities because we don't live in a world where we can afford to write our own TCP/IP stack to maximize the throughput on our shitty REST APIs that C/R/U/D our customers' TODO items in our database.
- frankreyes 3y ago
  Yes, there's a trade off between labour productivity and runtime performance. And it's true that not everyone has to run their app at 120hz latency, but it's also true that software has become slower. And it's not something new. JWZ from Netscape established the Zawinski's Law: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150254/what-does-jamie-zawinskis-law-mean https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1502... >> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. But also N Wirth said something similar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law >> Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. Wikipedia from Wirth Law surveys other variations of the statement. So no, it's not just some crack pot hypothesis. It's a real world problem that we have to actually deal with.

dns_snek 3y ago

He says the same about virtual machines, package managers, engines and even libraries. That presentation is a borderline-psychotic rant unless viewed through a very narrow lens where the only thing that matters is maximum-performance systems programming. He's disregarding every productivity improvement in pursuit of maximum performance. He makes that very clear, and in that context it makes sense, but most people won't have the same priorities because we don't live in a world where we can afford to write our own TCP/IP stack to maximize the throughput on our shitty REST APIs that C/R/U/D our customers' TODO items in our database.

frankreyes 3y ago
Yes, there's a trade off between labour productivity and runtime performance. And it's true that not everyone has to run their app at 120hz latency, but it's also true that software has become slower. And it's not something new. JWZ from Netscape established the Zawinski's Law: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150254/what-does-jamie-zawinskis-law-mean https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1502... >> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. But also N Wirth said something similar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law >> Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. Wikipedia from Wirth Law surveys other variations of the statement. So no, it's not just some crack pot hypothesis. It's a real world problem that we have to actually deal with.