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> I went to give my 10 year old access to my old AWS account to play around […] Why not give them an old machine and a Linux install USB? That’s how I got sta

> I went to give my 10 year old access to my old AWS account to play around […] Why not give them an old machine and a Linux install USB? That’s how I got started around that age (ok, with a CD instead of a USB, because it was the ‘00s), and I believe those skills are much more portable/generalizable (as in: if you know basic Linux, you can probably figure out basic AWS, but I’m not sure about the reverse). You’d also be encouraging them to learn an open system with an open philosophy and a great community, which (IMHO) is a better starting point than a closed, corporate, for-profit ecosystem.

gregw2 2y ago
Perhaps I was foolish. I appreciate your point in hindsight. Having setup websites on Linux and on S3 in past work, both years ago, I somehow thought AWS would be easier.... After dealing with trying to avoid using more expensive AWS Amplify to just have a simple static s3 website, the IAM probably took me more time to straighten out than installing linux on his laptop and setting up Apache to work through our ISP's router. Or maybe not...
mdaniel 2y ago
While I agree with your sentiment, as a competing theory if one really did want to teach cloud-native things then I'll point out that AWS is not the only cloud API in town: https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/2025.1/ https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/2025.1/ -> https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack#start-a-dev-cloud https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack#start-a-dev-cloud My recollection is that it runs fairly well in a 8GB VM so it should positively scream on any one of the $25 32GB Dell or Thinkpad devices from Green Citizen (e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/316679014997 https://www.ebay.com/itm/316679014997 ) I haven't personally tried to set up a local network of them (to demonstrate how "AZ failure" works) but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work fine --- obligatory reference: I downloaded Slackware over 28.8k onto all 32(?) floppies. I was thrilled out of my mind about learning how this "unix" thing works that I heard so much about

gregw2 2y ago

Perhaps I was foolish. I appreciate your point in hindsight. Having setup websites on Linux and on S3 in past work, both years ago, I somehow thought AWS would be easier.... After dealing with trying to avoid using more expensive AWS Amplify to just have a simple static s3 website, the IAM probably took me more time to straighten out than installing linux on his laptop and setting up Apache to work through our ISP's router. Or maybe not...

mdaniel 2y ago

While I agree with your sentiment, as a competing theory if one really did want to teach cloud-native things then I'll point out that AWS is not the only cloud API in town: https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/2025.1/ https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/2025.1/ -> https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack#start-a-dev-cloud https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack#start-a-dev-cloud My recollection is that it runs fairly well in a 8GB VM so it should positively scream on any one of the $25 32GB Dell or Thinkpad devices from Green Citizen (e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/316679014997 https://www.ebay.com/itm/316679014997 ) I haven't personally tried to set up a local network of them (to demonstrate how "AZ failure" works) but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work fine --- obligatory reference: I downloaded Slackware over 28.8k onto all 32(?) floppies. I was thrilled out of my mind about learning how this "unix" thing works that I heard so much about