3 ms·

I disagree. I learnt good stuff from this article and it’s enough.

by nmoura 11mo ago

locknitpicker 11mo ago
> I disagree. I learnt good stuff from this article and it’s enough. That's perfectly fine. It's also besides the point though. You can learn without reading random people online cynically shit talking others as a self promotion strategy. This is junior dev energy manifesting junior level understanding of the whole problem domain. There's not a lot to learn from claims that boil down to "don't have bugs".
- rvnx 11mo ago
  It's very similar to LinkedIn posts, where everybody seems to know better than the people actually running the platforms.
- alpinisme 11mo ago
  Not commenting on the quality of this post but occasional writing that responds to an event provides a good opportunity to share thoughts that wouldn’t otherwise reach an audience. If you post advice without a concrete scenario you’re responding to, it’s both less tangible for your audience and less likely to find an audience when it’s easier to shrug off (or put off).
- galleywest200 11mo ago
  > You can learn without reading random people online Somebody has to write something in the first place for one to learn from it, even if the writing is disagreeable.
  - locknitpicker 11mo ago
    You failed to cite the comment you were replying to. The comment is: > You can learn without reading random people online cynically shit talking others as a self promotion strategy.
- engineeringwoke 11mo ago
  I laughed out loud when he said Cloudflare should have formally verified its systems.
  - DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
    Not to single you out in particular, but I see this sentiment among programmers a lot and to me it's akin to a structural engineer saying "I laughed out loud when he said they should analyze the forces in the bridge".
    - engineeringwoke 11mo ago
      You can't formally verify anything that uses consensus, which is the backbone of the entire web. It's a complete non-starter.
      - DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
        Care to elaborate? Perhaps the tools to do this in practice aren't there (which just shows how young the field of software "engineering" really is), but what consensus are you talking about and how is it an obstacle to verifying code? Most of the web follows standards and protocols, which actually sort of a prerequisite for communications across different systems...
        engineeringwoke 11mo ago
        Basically the modern web uses orchestration, for pretty much everything. Usually Kubernetes is doing that. Theoretically protocols like RAFT are formally verifiable, but their implementations in orchestration tools like etcd have not been, and I would go so far as to say that that is an impossible task. Therefore, the entire exercise is kind of silly.
        DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
        Thanks, interesting. However, that just seems like a protocol like any other, with no real reason why you "can't" formally verify it. Is there something special about a consensus algorithm / protocol that makes it any more difficult to verify than any other algorithm which doesn't yet have a formally verified implementation? Edit: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-48989-6_8 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-48989-6_...
- DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
  This article actually explains how this bug in particular could have been avoided. Sure you may not consider his approach realistic, but it's not at all saying "don't have bugs". In fact, not having formal verification or similar tooling in place, would be more like saying "just don't write buggy code".
  - locknitpicker 11mo ago
    > This article actually explains how this bug in particular could have been avoided. Not really. The article is a textbook example of hindsight bias. It's a simplistic analysis of a far more complex problem that goes over the blogger's head, and results in a string of simplistic assertions that fail to address any of the issues. Read up on the definition of monday morning quarterback.
    - DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
      Read up on the value of snarky and dismissive comments spouting simplistic cliches.
oivey 11mo ago
What did you learn? The suggestions in the post seem pretty shallow and non-actionable.

I disagree. I learnt good stuff from this article and it’s enough.

by nmoura 11mo ago

I disagree. I learnt good stuff from this article and it’s enough.

> I disagree. I learnt good stuff from this article and it’s enough. That's perfectly fine. It's also besides the point though. You can learn without reading random people online cynically shit talking others as a self promotion strategy. This is junior dev energy manifesting junior level understanding of the whole problem domain. There's not a lot to learn from claims that boil down to "don't have bugs".

rvnx 11mo ago
It's very similar to LinkedIn posts, where everybody seems to know better than the people actually running the platforms.
alpinisme 11mo ago
Not commenting on the quality of this post but occasional writing that responds to an event provides a good opportunity to share thoughts that wouldn’t otherwise reach an audience. If you post advice without a concrete scenario you’re responding to, it’s both less tangible for your audience and less likely to find an audience when it’s easier to shrug off (or put off).
galleywest200 11mo ago
> You can learn without reading random people online Somebody has to write something in the first place for one to learn from it, even if the writing is disagreeable.
- locknitpicker 11mo ago
  You failed to cite the comment you were replying to. The comment is: > You can learn without reading random people online cynically shit talking others as a self promotion strategy.
engineeringwoke 11mo ago
I laughed out loud when he said Cloudflare should have formally verified its systems.
- DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
  Not to single you out in particular, but I see this sentiment among programmers a lot and to me it's akin to a structural engineer saying "I laughed out loud when he said they should analyze the forces in the bridge".
  - engineeringwoke 11mo ago
    You can't formally verify anything that uses consensus, which is the backbone of the entire web. It's a complete non-starter.
    - DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
      Care to elaborate? Perhaps the tools to do this in practice aren't there (which just shows how young the field of software "engineering" really is), but what consensus are you talking about and how is it an obstacle to verifying code? Most of the web follows standards and protocols, which actually sort of a prerequisite for communications across different systems...
      - engineeringwoke 11mo ago
        Basically the modern web uses orchestration, for pretty much everything. Usually Kubernetes is doing that. Theoretically protocols like RAFT are formally verifiable, but their implementations in orchestration tools like etcd have not been, and I would go so far as to say that that is an impossible task. Therefore, the entire exercise is kind of silly.
        DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
        Thanks, interesting. However, that just seems like a protocol like any other, with no real reason why you "can't" formally verify it. Is there something special about a consensus algorithm / protocol that makes it any more difficult to verify than any other algorithm which doesn't yet have a formally verified implementation? Edit: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-48989-6_8 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-48989-6_...
DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
This article actually explains how this bug in particular could have been avoided. Sure you may not consider his approach realistic, but it's not at all saying "don't have bugs". In fact, not having formal verification or similar tooling in place, would be more like saying "just don't write buggy code".
- locknitpicker 11mo ago
  > This article actually explains how this bug in particular could have been avoided. Not really. The article is a textbook example of hindsight bias. It's a simplistic analysis of a far more complex problem that goes over the blogger's head, and results in a string of simplistic assertions that fail to address any of the issues. Read up on the definition of monday morning quarterback.
  - DrSusanCalvin 11mo ago
    Read up on the value of snarky and dismissive comments spouting simplistic cliches.

oivey 11mo ago

What did you learn? The suggestions in the post seem pretty shallow and non-actionable.