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Agreed, this is probably the most gripping non-fiction I've ever read

I still find the DevEx of serverless terrible compared to the well-established monolith frameworks available to us.

The YAML config, IAM permissions, generating requests and responses, it's all so painful to get anything done.

Admittedly I speak as a software engineer primarily building CRUD apps, where frameworks have had decades of development. I can see use cases for event-driven applications where serverless may make life easier. But for CRUD, currently no chance.


Serverless can be useful for very specific tasks, such as processing files you upload, things that should happen in the background, but if you already have a simple monolith web app, I don't see why going serverless just to go serverless will help you.

I do see its usefulness, but its not a one size fits all tool.


> Admittedly I speak as a software engineer primarily building CRUD apps

Ya, this is the majority of us.


Or maybe we just lack frameworks that provide the same developer experience but with transparent serverless deployment?

Here is an open source framework that my company makes that I think meets your requirements:

https://github.com/dbos-inc/dbos-transact-py

You can build your software as a monolith and deploy it with one command to your own cloud or our cloud.


I find serverless to be a breeze, with zero sysadmin costs compared to setting up VPS, EC2, doing your own custom monitoring, etc. Each to their own, however.

And gateway+lambda is a near perfect "dumb crud" app, though it is not without a startup cost.


> with zero sysadmin costs compared to setting up VPS

If you need RDS for example you need the VPS.

It only looks good on the outside.


There is no good reason to build a distributed monolith. You can always think of/design your monolith as a collection of (micro-)services and get the best of both worlds.

I find FaaS best when needing to automate something completely unrelated to what goes in to serving the customer. Stuff like bots to report CWV metrics from DataDog to a Slack channel.


A good reason to build a non-distributed monolith, though.

I think that's true for smaller shops. Larger shops start building their developer experience over everything and you can make it work.

But that means you're not starting with serverless, and it's your pivot from the original monolith.


If you use AWS CDK the DX is amazing.

There are interesting positive/negative (it hasn’t been researched enough yet) side effects on the effects this has in raising the pH of the ocean, potentially reversing ocean acidification


Finding a reason to regularly meet up. It takes away the mental load of having to arrange a time to meet up. Do X with someone weekly/monthly and you’ll become friends if you get on.


I agree with this. I moved to a new city and struggled to make friends. I’m a natural introvert and kinda shy so reaching out for friendships doesn’t come naturally to me.

But I joined a language school class and made friends there. I joined a basketball team and made friends there too.

It seems weird but I’m starting to think that it’s as simple as if you interact someone once a week for a decent period of time and their personality is kinda compatible with yours then you become friends.

So if I was looking to make friends now, I’d look for a group activity with a weekly commitment that involves people who are likely to share some common interests.


This Changes Everything - Naomi Klein.

This was a good alternative view to how we were taught the world was “meant” to be run


The Overstory by Richard Powers

A book that encourages your imagination


Would there be anything wrong with a clone?


That's incredibly helpful and insightful, thank you!


Ha I’ve considered that. I think I’d like a job that is directly connected to the physical environment rather than me just being in that environment (i.e I want to see my code change something in front of me)


Funnily enough my current company has a big IoT network and I was hoping this would mean I would get to travel to the installation sites but the tooling is so good everything can be done remotely! I imagine other companies must have more people on site though


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