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The main lesson from unix that is getting lost is composability of systems. So many silos and proprietary "cloud" systems, so much glue that needs to be consta
by jpgvm 3y ago
The main lesson from unix that is getting lost is composability of systems.
So many silos and proprietary "cloud" systems, so much glue that needs to be constantly rewritten because there isn't any stability in an ecosystem composed of competing rather than cooperating actors.
There are great things that have come along, I would say k8s has been very successful at introducing a highly interoperable, composable API for abstracting over a bunch of machines.
But the trend towards hosted services that are incentivized to create lock-in and data-gravity isn't great.
- rjbwork 3y agoI don't think this lesson is getting lost accidentally, but intentionally. There was a brief moment in the late 00's/early 10's where companies were creating these rich web API's that would let you (and other services acting on your behalf) interact with their system in arbitrary and novel ways. But that turned out to not be very profitable (or at the very least, wouldn't let you create a walled garden that would get 100x exit for your VC's) so we've steadily moved to more locked down, less interactive, less open, less useful, but ultimately more profitable services. Emblematic of this journey is Twitter, I think.