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Just like in Unix, we see the limits of composability: You can build some very basic, generic tools that are composable and easy to use. the greps and finds of
by hibikir 12y ago
Just like in Unix, we see the limits of composability: You can build some very basic, generic tools that are composable and easy to use. the greps and finds of the world. But there are relatively few of them out there, surrounded by a bunch of ugly, hard to read, hard to reuse glue. This is naturally occurring, because each piece of glue is not used many times, and its task isn't all that easy to define.
So, taking this to Microservices: while we can build a bunch of little services that will be reused everywhere. The large majority of a system will be this kind of glue: You can't make every single piece of code you write be as well defined as grep, but with a service interface. And while you will be able to track what the little pieces do, the bigger command and control pieces will always present a problem. We can't wish complexity away, no matter how hard we try.
So designing a bunch of microservices and hoping most of your problems will be solved is like trying to build something in Unix without perl and shell scripts. But I see companies, today, that think it's a silver bullet. They've not read Brooks enough.
- dsberkholz 12y agoRight on target, and very apt considering that I'm boarding a plane to GlueCon this afternoon. =)
- pjmlp 12y ago> They've not read Brooks enough. They never do. It is incredible how those mistakes keep being repeated.
- joe_the_user 12y agoI don't think you can quite call these patterns of failure mistakes. They are effective, reliable way to get certain things up and running in a given time frame and in a decentralized fashion. If you have limited resources and need to have things working in that time frame, decentralized services can be the right decision even if they give you problems later. Further, being a fairly reliable way to do things, they have appeal even if your time frame is far enough ahead to see the problems.
- pjmlp 12y agoI did not explain myself well, I was thinking in a more broader sense, including the related project management issues.
- EGreg 12y agoBrooks?
- brian_cloutier 12y agoFred Brooks, author of No Silver Bullet[0] which GP is referring to, and the fairly famous Mythical Man Month[1]. [0] http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~xswang/Research/Papers/SERelated/no-silver-bullet.pdf http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~xswang/Research/Papers/SERelat... [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Mythical-Man-Month-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959# http://www.amazon.com/The-Mythical-Man-Month-Engineering-Ann...