Arghh the biggest issue in current place (I be leaving before year end) is the amount of "engineers" who are pathologically afraid of relational database.
You have dozens microservices per teams, split between k8s, meso, aws, azure, physical servers each on using everything under the moon to store data up to storing files in s3
Needless to say the amount of issues due to data inconsistencies is incredible. And of course the amount of actual users of the overall product is tiny being an enterprise products, maybe few thousand concurrent users at peak.
They now want regional replication and screwed due to so many sources of data. Where postgres alone would have done
I currently have a bunch of clowns who are indistinguishable from most of the clowns in my profession. Application slow? We’ll just add caches instead of trying to create an architecture.
“But we have an architecture.” No, you don’t. You have a set of idioms that you arrange like dominoes until an answer you like comes out the other end. That’s only an architecture in the way suffering is a personality.
You don’t need more caches. You need an architecture and dynamic programming. Someone save me from promise caches. First couple times they were so cool, now they’re a golden hammer for lack of even the most rudimentary of data flow analysis.
I've long thought that caching is to software architecture what ketchup is to diner food. Something's not right with your meal? Just apply more ketchup.
I'd think that was the salt of software architecture, but there are limits to which you can fix up a dish by adding salt, beyond which the dish becomes inedible. So I'd guess "upgrade hardware" would be the salt of software architecture.
Do you really think your front page needs all the queries reran for every single user that visits? Even though things won't change for, let's say, even 30s?
Even the front page of HN is cached. Their system is pretty snappy but not caching what's trivial just doesn't work in the real world.
That suggests that I believe the right amount of ketchup on food is zero. That's incorrect. I'm not saying you shouldn't ever cache anything. I'm saying that caching is used to cover up a lot of architectural flaws, when sometimes we would be better off if we fixed the flaws.
And I'd add that you notion that the only two options are "cache X" and "rerun all queries" is a part of the problem here. There are more things, Horatio.
"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things."
Seriously don't build a cache until you have exhausted all other performance improving avenues. I am not against caches but throwing a new cache in the code every time a performance issue is found or worse preemptively making a cache due to a possible performance issue is an endless source of cache invalidation bugs.
Only in the sense that the lion is a specialized type of mammal, rather than king of the jungle.
Caches are global state in sheep’s clothing. In many languages and implementations, they can be mutable shared state, which leads to unexpected side effects and concurrency bugs that may cross transaction or user boundaries. It’s a covert channel where code interacts without ever talking to each other. In languages without static analysis you cannot determine quickly which pieces of code talk in this fashion. It’s all secretly coupled instead of overtly coupled. You only learn by vast experience, and in the interim you make mistakes, which makes the oldest team members appear capable and the newest unworthy of trust. But it’s the people who tilted this playing field that you can’t trust. In a word: toxic.
Done right, memoization shows up clearly in your sequence diagrams, near the heart of your architecture. The top level of the code knows what’s going on, and orchestrates communication. People walking in off the street can figure out what the hell is happening, and be productive in short order.
It can often force you to think about when your system of record and your source of truth diverge. Usually I see people cache low quality precursor data for a decision, and then they have to cook it every time.
The thing I liked most about AngularJS was that you were meant to fetch all of your data fairly early in an interaction, mis-en-place style. If the data you got was a little garbage, you cooked it before any interface code ever saw it. The view just saw the nice version.
Doing so affords another architectural tool. All of that cleanup code can be moved to the backend or the database in a single refactoring, getting it out of the client. And the overt coupling makes you contend with the fact that a piece of code talks to too many hints to get its job done. It’s a mirror some do t want to look in.
The problem is, all of this involves making decisions, and a lot of developers either never learned, or learned to distrust their decisions. And rather than finding way to mitigate a bad decision, far too many of us have instead spent years or decades learning how never to make a decision at all. We’d be a lot better off with strong opinions loosely held.
This is standard practice in the micro services world, bin ACID compliance and replace it with network partitions because you’re so fashionable you have no users and no data.
In the system I’m working on (it’s mongodb tastic) someone had added a try catch around everything (EVERYTHING) that reverts the service manually in the catch block. I don’t need to explain to people here how moronic rolling your own transactions like this is...
Everywhere using micro services appears to be the same :-/
I don’t think we’ve quite cracked how to have a bunch of things behave the same without being the same thing. With DCVS, containers, monitoring systems and the like, we are nibbling at the edges but there’s a lot left to be desired.
You and I should be able to benefit from a set of corporate- or at least division-standard data retention services without sharing a database, let alone each other’s schema.
If k8s was being designed from ground up I would want a move away from yaml for configuration to a strongly typed DSL, something like gradle doing with move to Kotlin DSL from weak groovy DSL.
This would mean better integration/autocomplete in editors and no time wasted on silly things like number of indents being wrong.
This looks very good well done! Microsoft need to hire you for the team asap!
It always cracks me up playing minecraft on xbox one x and once your village hits few hundred villagers framerate (when running beta from insider it's shown on screen) drops to like 3-4fps
This is what the author was addressing with "It’s worth noting that Flutter for Web is currently in beta and the problems I am about to detail could be addressed. However, I believe these issues are fundamental to Flutter’s design choices so I feel confident in my criticism."
I agree, this is a fundamental problem they are probably unable to fix.
It was always my impression that rendering to a canvas was the quick n dirty way to get something running on the web, not the long term plan for flutter
Name any political, cultural, economic, literature, sports achievement in last 30 years to come out of Russia. That's right Internet trolls which are an evolution on kgbs psyops
Sure, and Nginx as well. JetBrains are in Eastern Europe, Nginx is sold to West, wonder why?
Or you can list graphene - a really nice, to say mildly, achievement. Guess why it wasn't announced from Russia but from UK?
Russia is being seriously held back by the autocracy. The whole world suffers to a degree, which explains animosity... Of course Russia suffers the most, but such things are hard to change. Ukraine and Belarus going the long and troublesome road now, while we here keep disagreements about good and evil.
> Name any political, cultural, economic, literature, sports achievement in last 30 years to come out of Russia.
Russia remains prominent in the literary world. Contemporary authors like Sorokin and Ulitskaya are widely translated into other languages. If anything Russia's decline in those other respects makes its authors more competitive internationally, because "Novelist X captures the gritty reality of an oppressive state" has been since the Soviet era a dependable angle to market books to foreign readers.
And IntelliJ IDEA of course, which I think many HN visitors are using in one form or another. This still doesn't change the original point that Putin regime has been very damaging to Russia.
jetbrains is a russian company with russian owners. The very fact they (similarly to wargaming of belarus) etablished venues in czech, cyprus etc, were:
1. to whitewash 'russia' label from they brand
2. to avoid potential economic sanctions (esp. post 2014 and Crimea)
3. tax evasion (yeah, cyprus is hq, truly like egshell apple/google ireleand is not for tax evasion)
4. able to recruit some westerners which were needed for sales/marketing to out-of-russia markets (skills, local market, local connections).
to make it clear: I consider both products really good, and both companies successfull and well managed on a worldwide scale. They success can be also measured by the very fact that you fell prey to their marketing strategy 'we're not russian company'. they are.
Was it more or less damaging then the tire-pyre disaster that the country went through in the 90s, prior to him taking power?
That's when my family left, and while my remaining relatives have soured against Putin in recent years (Funny how that happened... They were all for him, right up until ~2017, or so), nobody feels nostalgic for the 90s.
Let's not whitewash history. The Russian public has only recently started souring on him. The brain drain didn't start because of him - it started 28 years ago, as soon as the borders were opened.
Wait, the U.K. isn’t a democracy, the queen is no longer the head of state, and the House of Lords no longer has a role in legislature or government? That’s news to me.
Also the House of Common's isn't really democratic in any meaningful sense of the word. It took 886,400 votes to get 1 Green MP but only 25,900 votes per SNP MP. Similarly 38,300 per Conservative MP to 336,000 per LibDem MP. That's an order of magnitude difference between votes to power.
Loss of UK means 10 euro a year less per every person left in eu27. You wildly overstating UKs contribution. It's peanuts compared to what Covid has caused
Eh being from Ireland if anyone puts up a border it be Irish farmers. Last thing they want is northern Ireland being used as a backdoor into Europe with UK dumping questionable gm or chlorinated food destroying their livelihoods.
Now, more than ever, it should be clear that further political integration in the EU would be an absolutely terrible idea. Look over the pond to see what a disaster it has been in the US. You can't effectively run a country of 325 million people with widely divergent viewpoints in a top-down fashion.
When people imagine a more politically integrated EU, I bet they don't imagine that government run by whoever they consider the kookiest people in the body politic. Imagine that EU integration proceeded apace, and Duda, or Orban, or Johnson became the popularly-elected President of the EU. (The current EU executive structure would never be adequate, of course, in a more politically integrated future.)
Remind me, how many times have Michigan and Illinois gone to war with each other since joining the union?
Federalism, in principle, is no bad thing - but it should keep to regulation and overarching legislation while letting states largely self govern (i.e. the EU model) rather than top-down tactical governance, which is where the US has ended up.
Ultimately, it’s a question of identity. Americans call themselves Americans. Europeans call themselves French, Dutch, Greek. That shared identity is the key to preventing war - everything else is just a means to that end.
> Federalism, in principle, is no bad thing - but it should keep to regulation and overarching legislation while letting states largely self govern (i.e. the EU model) rather than top-down tactical governance, which is where the US has ended up.
The US couldn’t maintain federalism, and the EU will ultimately end up in the same place. There is no additional structural protection in the EU, there just hasn’t been enough time to erode the sovereignty of the individual member states yet. In some respects, the EU is actually structurally worse. For example, the EU has no equivalent to our anti-Commandeering principle, so the central government can force the member states to execute EU legislation using the apparatus of the domestic governments.
From Ireland, been looking at shenanigans in UK for last 4 years while scratching my head at the madness which seems to have taken over.
Almost daily get contacts on linkedin for jobs both relocation and remote in UK (London and Belfast) and each time I politely point out to the recruiter that (beside the already lower salaries which have not kept up with fall in pounds value) it would not be a wise move to attach one to UK at this time due to all the uncertainty, also there has been a rush of companies setting up here opening up many opportunities while remaining in Europe.
Funnily enough a good chunk of the food UK eats comes from Ireland and other neighbouring EU countries.
During this covid virus lockdown working remotely from home with a massive farm size garden growing fruit and veggies in rural Ireland has proven to be better for my mental/physical health than being locked into a tiny apartment in a city
My routine for normal week days hasn’t changed. I’m still inside in front of a computer for most of the day. I still jog most mornings and go for a walk most evenings.
Not hanging out with people as much and other similar things would’ve presumably been impacted the same in most places.
Anecdotally, I mostly know middle and upper middle class people. A few have moved or are going to move into bigger and farther away places from their current apt. But still within their current city limits.
I’m sure you enjoy your location and house size. It appears people who are enjoying larger and more rural living spaces always preferred them pre-corona too. Perhaps I am missing a trend of many people who can work remote now, moving out of cities. I know I see a lot of chatter on ‘trendy’ social sites, but it’s not always representative.
Depends. I can see a great Xmas season in UK retail ("get stuff before the gates are closing"), and a wealth of new im-/export businesses in the time after (and running such businesses isn't out of character for Londoners I guess). I know I'd be looking into these kinds of opportunities right now.
I would have agreed with you up to few years ago, but now Dublin has a vibrant jobs market in tech with salaries that are equal to higher than London with a less crazy (tho still crazy) cost of living.
Like I said the fall of pound has been spectacular in last 4-5 years.
* Engineer London 2020 - £95K ~€105K (5K gbp increases per year)
Both engineers start at same pay 5 years ago, both of them think they are moving up in the world with reasonable pay increases per year. One of them is being screwed by falling value of pound against just about every major currency due to Brexit and all the uncertainty.
It's only 'being screwed' (or just an unfortunate decision on your part) if your participation in Euro economy is weighted high enough vs. the local economy.
i.e. the same increase looks better if you live in London than if you work remotely from Dublin. But.. I don't think it's surprising that London salaries aren't optimised for remote workers in Dublin?
(This may well change of course! Will be interesting to see what happens if remote work gets significantly more widespread.)
London is more expensive to live in than Dublin, by raw property prices, but London is much easier to commute in from distances.
Until the pandemic Dublin had become impossible to rent in due to reallocation to AirBnB.
I'm currently still comfortable in Edinburgh, where I get slightly less money than London but a much cheaper house. My current employer is not exposed to much Brexit risk, but Dublin is very high up on my exit strategy choices list.
Yeah, I'm also in Edinburgh. I honestly don't see the London appeal these days. There are a few cheap northern cities with solid tech scenes, little competition and cheap cost of living. Edinburgh's the best one, but I've heard tons of great stuff about Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham. Even accounting for salary (and those have been going up in Edinburgh recently) you're still better off due to cost of living. Plus green space!
What a coincidence. I'm currently in London but have been given permission to relocate to Edinburgh if I wanted (keeping London salary).
It's really tempting. The thought of being a hour or so's drive from wilderness is very appealing. My main concern is being stuck up there if things really go to shit. That and the poorer weather!
One thing I would recommend if you do consider moving to Edinburgh is moving to a place just outside of Edinburgh that is on a rail line. After living the centre of Edinburgh for ~30 years we moved across to a rural location in Fife and it's the best of both worlds - getting into Edinburgh by train is easy and actually quite a pleasant journey (the Forth Bridge!) and you are a good bit closer to the Highlands (where I go most weekends).
My commute is about 50 mins door to door - 10 min drive, 30 on train and 10 minute walk. Mind you even pre-coronavirus I was only going into the office 2 or 3 days a week, working from home the rest of the time. The train trip is actually quite nice as you go along the coast then across the Forth Bridge.
Property is much cheaper in Fife than a comparable property in Edinburgh. We got a nice 5 bedroom house in a rural area with a large garden and fantastic views for about a third less than a 4 bedroom flat in Edinburgh.
Even without driving there's so much green space up here. And the weather isn't that bad. The east coast from Edinburgh to Dundee is in this weird spot in Scotland that gets significantly less rain than most other areas. It's just a bit colder.
Thats the other problem with Brexit, you might not be able to take advantage of remote if you are in UK as EU has fairly strict data protection laws regarding its citizens.
As a EU citizen i would be horrified if any non EU company gets its hands on my personal data.
From our point of view UK is now in same league of "3rd countries" as Russia or India
> London's different. If the world economy falls apart I'd rather be in London than Dublin for job seeking purposes.
If the word economy falls apart, cities that are disproportionately engaged in finance and especially international finance like London and New York are going to be the worst places to be for jobs in the short-term.
A little while after the initial chaos and collapse, they'll be great places for rebuilding jobs, though.
The cost of living in London eats up any salary benefit. Once you factor in actually having to live in London, or a murderous commute, there is almost no benefit to living in London unless you're young or work in finance. If you're young there are opportunities in London you can't find elsewhere in English speaking Europe if you're willing to live like a pauper for a bit.
> The cost of living in London eats up any salary benefit.
Does it actually though? Genuine question having grown up here. I live with my partner, our monthly outgoings living on the zone 1/2 border are ~£800 each for mortgage, bills, car insurance, etc. Last year I earned ~£90k before tax. I don't think I would have earned anything like that amount working in another part in the UK. Even if my cost of living was halved I'd only be saving around £5k a year.
I'm relatively young I suppose and I don't love everything about London, but I see lots of benefits to living here outside of the income, too. I can also be in the (proper) countryside in an hour or so drive at the weekends if I want a change of scenery.
When did you buy? I get the distinct impression from friends that even well off techies are struggling to get a big deposit together for a London property nowadays.
Late 2018. I got a big income bump in early 2017 and both my partner I and were able to save for a deposit by living frugally for a couple of years. I wouldn't have been able to do it alone though, I think you realistically need two incomes to buy in London.
Deposit it not the problem, it's the disappointing quality of the properties in London that stops me buying. Why spend £700-800k for a 2-3 bedroom place which has finishing like it's £250k flat.
If this COVID stuff has taught me anything it's that London can be made far less expensive if you want. The amount of money I've saved since March is astounding, purely from not buying coffees, lunches and pints, which are things I only really did because I had to commute to work.
The real benefit of living in London is that it'd be far easier to get another job if things truly went south.
If you're a talented senior-level developer you'll lose tens of thousands of Euros by choosing to work in a much colder market. In retirement, this could mean you'll lose half a million euros or more (with compounding investments).
You have dozens microservices per teams, split between k8s, meso, aws, azure, physical servers each on using everything under the moon to store data up to storing files in s3
Needless to say the amount of issues due to data inconsistencies is incredible. And of course the amount of actual users of the overall product is tiny being an enterprise products, maybe few thousand concurrent users at peak.
They now want regional replication and screwed due to so many sources of data. Where postgres alone would have done