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> Things like this are why I'd much prefer if Amazon provided detailed documentation of how their stuff works, rather than leaving it to the development communi

> Things like this are why I'd much prefer if Amazon provided detailed documentation of how their stuff works, rather than leaving it to the development community to poke around and derive those details independently. Absolutely this. So much engineering time has been wasted on reverse-engineering internal details of things in AWS that could be easily documented. I once spent a couple days empirically determining how exactly cross-AZ least-outstanding-requests load balancing worked with AWS's ALB because the docs didn't tell me. Reverse-engineering can be fun (or at least I kinda enjoy it) but it's not a good use of our time and is one of those shadow costs of using the Cloud. It's not like there's some secret sauce here in most of these implementation details (there aren't that many ways to design a load balancer). If there was, I'd understand not telling us. This is probably less an Apple-style culture of secrecy and more laziness and a belief that important details have been abstracted away from us users because "The Cloud" when in fact, these details do really matter for performance and other design decisions we have to make.

citizenpaul 1y ago
I have to assume that at this point its either intentional(increases profits?) or because AWS doesn't truly understand their own systems due to the culture of the company.
- messe 1y ago
  > because AWS doesn't truly understand their own systems due to the culture of the company. This. There's a lot of freedom in how teams operate. Some teams have great internal documentation, others don't, and a lot of it is scattered across the internal Amazon wiki. I recall having to reach out on slack on multiple occasions to figure out how certain systems worked after diving through docs and the relevant issue trackers didn't make it clear.
- cyberax 1y ago
  AWS also has a pretty diverse set of hardware, and often several generations of software running in parallel. Usually because the new generation does not quite support 100% of features from the previous generation.
TheSoftwareGuy 1y ago
>It's not like there's some secret sauce here in most of these implementation details. If there was, I'd understand not telling us. This is probably less an Apple-style culture of secrecy and more laziness and a belief that important details have been abstracted away from us users because "The Cloud" when in fact, these details do really matter for performance and other design decisions we have to make. Having worked inside AWS I can tell you one big reason is the attitude/fear that anything we put in out public docs may end up getting relied on by customers. If customers rely on the implementation to work in a specific way, then changing that detail requires a LOT more work to prevent breaking customer's workloads. If it is even possible at that point.
- libraryofbabel 1y ago
  And yet "Hyrum's Law" famously says people will come to rely on features of your system anyway, even if they are undocumented. So I'm not convinced this is really customer-centric, it's more AWS being able to say: hey sorry this change broke things for you, but you were relying on an internal detail. I do think there is a better option here where there are important details that are published but with a "this is subject to change at any time" warning slapped on them. Otherwise, like OP says, customers just have to figure it all out on their own.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Sure, but the court isn’t going to consider hyrum’s law in a tort claim, but might consider AWS documentation - even with a disclaimer - with more weight. Rely on undocumented behavior at your own risk.
    - vlovich123 1y ago
      Has Amazon ever been taken to court for things like this? I really don't think this is a legal concern.
      - lazide 1y ago
whakim 1y ago
> It's not like there's some secret sauce here in most of these implementation details. IME the implementation of ANN + metadata filtering is often the "secret sauce" behind many vector database implementations.
javier2 1y ago
Its likely not specified, because they want to keep their right to improve or change it later. Documenting too detailed leads to way harder changes
kenhwang 1y ago
Did you have an account manager or support contract with AWS? IME, they're more than willing to set up a call with one of their engineers to disclose implementation details like this after your company signs an NDA.
ithkuil 1y ago
OTOH once you document something you need to do more work when you change the behaviour
BobbyJo 1y ago
> This is probably less an Apple-style culture of secrecy and more laziness and a belief that important details have been abstracted away from us users As someone who had worked in providing infra to third parties, I can say that providing more detail than necessary will hurt your chances with some bigger customers. Giving them more information than they need or ask for makes your product look more complicated. However sophisticated you think a customer of this product will be, go lower.
yupyupyups 1y ago
>So much engineering time has been wasted on reverse-engineering internal details of things It feels that this true for proprietary software in general.

citizenpaul 1y ago

I have to assume that at this point its either intentional(increases profits?) or because AWS doesn't truly understand their own systems due to the culture of the company.

messe 1y ago
> because AWS doesn't truly understand their own systems due to the culture of the company. This. There's a lot of freedom in how teams operate. Some teams have great internal documentation, others don't, and a lot of it is scattered across the internal Amazon wiki. I recall having to reach out on slack on multiple occasions to figure out how certain systems worked after diving through docs and the relevant issue trackers didn't make it clear.
cyberax 1y ago
AWS also has a pretty diverse set of hardware, and often several generations of software running in parallel. Usually because the new generation does not quite support 100% of features from the previous generation.

TheSoftwareGuy 1y ago

>It's not like there's some secret sauce here in most of these implementation details. If there was, I'd understand not telling us. This is probably less an Apple-style culture of secrecy and more laziness and a belief that important details have been abstracted away from us users because "The Cloud" when in fact, these details do really matter for performance and other design decisions we have to make. Having worked inside AWS I can tell you one big reason is the attitude/fear that anything we put in out public docs may end up getting relied on by customers. If customers rely on the implementation to work in a specific way, then changing that detail requires a LOT more work to prevent breaking customer's workloads. If it is even possible at that point.

libraryofbabel 1y ago
And yet "Hyrum's Law" famously says people will come to rely on features of your system anyway, even if they are undocumented. So I'm not convinced this is really customer-centric, it's more AWS being able to say: hey sorry this change broke things for you, but you were relying on an internal detail. I do think there is a better option here where there are important details that are published but with a "this is subject to change at any time" warning slapped on them. Otherwise, like OP says, customers just have to figure it all out on their own.
- lazide 1y ago
  Sure, but the court isn’t going to consider hyrum’s law in a tort claim, but might consider AWS documentation - even with a disclaimer - with more weight. Rely on undocumented behavior at your own risk.
  - vlovich123 1y ago
    Has Amazon ever been taken to court for things like this? I really don't think this is a legal concern.
    - lazide 1y ago

whakim 1y ago

> It's not like there's some secret sauce here in most of these implementation details. IME the implementation of ANN + metadata filtering is often the "secret sauce" behind many vector database implementations.

javier2 1y ago

Its likely not specified, because they want to keep their right to improve or change it later. Documenting too detailed leads to way harder changes

kenhwang 1y ago

Did you have an account manager or support contract with AWS? IME, they're more than willing to set up a call with one of their engineers to disclose implementation details like this after your company signs an NDA.

ithkuil 1y ago

OTOH once you document something you need to do more work when you change the behaviour

BobbyJo 1y ago

> This is probably less an Apple-style culture of secrecy and more laziness and a belief that important details have been abstracted away from us users As someone who had worked in providing infra to third parties, I can say that providing more detail than necessary will hurt your chances with some bigger customers. Giving them more information than they need or ask for makes your product look more complicated. However sophisticated you think a customer of this product will be, go lower.

yupyupyups 1y ago

>So much engineering time has been wasted on reverse-engineering internal details of things It feels that this true for proprietary software in general.