choose-boring-technology

Choose Boring Technology@mcfunleymcfunley.com

Introductions

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1998200320072015

Mature Engineering Spoils You

How do you choosetechnology?

$ choices=(mysql postgres mongodb redis)$ brew install ${choices[$RANDOM % 4]}

How do you makedevelopers happy?

The answer for many:chase shiny objects.

I’ve been there.

Shakespeareansonnets.Eating,pooping, etc.

“Does this productmake sense?”“How aboutMongoDB?”

Source: “Time Travel in Primer”Wikipedia

Attention is precious.

INNOVATION TOKENS

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Epistemology

(I’m not a fan of this guy.)

There are known unknowns,and there areunknown unknowns.

“We don’t know what happens whenthe primary is isolated due to anetwork partition.

“We didn’t realizethat writing statscould cause GCpauses.http://www.evanjones.ca/jvm-mmap-pause-finding.html

Known unknownUnknown unknown

Boring tech.New, shiny tech.

The failure modes of boringtechnology are well-understood.

Optimize globally.

Polyglot programming(artist’s conception)

What’s happeninghere?

The short-term benefits of using a“costsnew database exceed the long-termof operating it.~You, implicitly, and notat your most lucid.

We can formalize this.

We can formalize this.(Sorta.)

ProblemsTechnology

ProblemsTechnology

Choices incur costs, andconfer benefits.ProblemsTechnology

Problems+benefitTechnology+cost

Problems+benefitTechnology+benefit+cost

Problems+benefitTechnology+cost+benefit+cost

total cost = Σ(tech cost) - Σ(velocity benefit)

Which term dominates?total cost = Σ(tech cost) - Σ(velocity benefit)

ProblemsTechnology

If the cost per tech is cheap,you can use many different techs.ProblemsTechnology

ProblemsTechnology

If each tech is expensive,you should pick a few.ProblemsTechnology

OBSERVATIONtech choices are expensive.

IN THE REALITY WE INHABIT,THIS TERM DOMINATES!!!total cost = Σ(tech cost) - Σ(velocity benefit)

ProblemsTechnology

Production is hard.

logginghealth checkalertingswitching costpackagemanagersOMGdeploymentunit testinginit scriptsbackupsoperationaltrainingsecuritymetricsrestoresscalingupgrades

“A l'exemple de Saturne, la révolutiondévore ses enfants”

SynergyNot just for jerks.

Then, we worked onother things for years.

Meanwhile, usage increased 2,000%usage****s given

The stack was scaled by others,for unrelated reasons.

Our team would have beenon the hook for scaling Redis.

SomeoneOur team would have beenon the hook for scaling Redis.

This is not absolutism.

Choose excitingtechnology?

Technology has global importance.Talk to each other!Adding tech

ecount

Ask how you would solve theproblem with the existing stack.

Hey I just heard about this new“shouldgraph database. I think that wetry it out.~Someone who is about tohave a bad time.

Enumerate unnaturalacts.

Find low-risk ways toget started.

Commit to removing theold, redundant system.

In closing

Use proventechnology.

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Choose a fewglobally optimaltechnologies.

Master your tools.

KinksTime

Kinks“Let’s switch”Time

Kinks“Let’s switch”MasteryTime

Beware green grass.

good stuff

good stuffpain points

paingood stuffpoints

????

Have a process.

“Which product?”“Whichdatabase?

Happiness comes fromshipping meaningful work.

mcfunley@gmail.commcfunley.com@mcfunley