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by danuker 1523 days ago
> what, a hundred lines? A couple hundred? You have to deal with different repos for different distros, I expect, adding repositories for deps that aren't in the distro repo, any number of weird edge cases

Well, here is where I must thank you. Thank you for replying to me, and giving me a real reason to look at this ecosystem.

My personal deployment script is really just one SCP command - it copies the new version of my statically-built blog to my server. The web server comes with the OS, and that's all I need.

But when I read "hundred lines? A couple hundred?" I realized my company has a script fitting that bill. There might be an opportunity for improving it. While I am still somewhat skeptical, because using Kubernetes instead of that script might still not be worth it long-term for a 7-person company (of which 3 devs and one sysadmin), I will check out its capabilities.

> in so doing you may find yourself better able to inform your objections.

Thank you for the patience to follow up, in spite of my arrogance. I might just come up with an improvement somewhere. Certainly we're a long way from a billion in ARR - I am thankful for your valuable time, and wish you continued and further success!

1 comments

Don't worry about the arrogance - I was much the same myself, once upon a time. :) It's worth taking thought to ensure you don't let it run too far away with you, of course, but I'd be a fool to judge harshly in others a taste of which I once drank deep myself. And hey, what the hell - did anyone ever change the world without being at least a little arrogant? There are other ways to dare what seems impossible to achieve, I suppose, but maybe none so effective.

One thing, I'd suggest looking to Docker before Kubernetes unless you already know you need multi-node (ie, multi-machine) deployments, and maybe as a pilot project even if you do. Kubernetes builds upon many of the same concepts (and some of the same infrastructure) as Docker, so if you get to grips with Docker alone at first, you'll likely have a much easier and less frustrating time later on than if you come to Kubernetes cold. (And when that time does come, definitely start with k3s if you're doing your own ops/admin work - it's explicitly designed to work on a smaller scale than other k8s distributions, but it also pretty much works out of the box with little admin overhead. As with starting on Docker alone vs k8s, it's all about managing your frustration budget so you can focus on learning at a near-optimal rate.

But hey, thanks for the well-wishes, and likewise taking the time in this thread! It's been of real benefit to me as well. If we're to be wholly honest, as an IC in my own right I've never been above mid-second quartile at absolute best, and at my age I'll never be better than I am today - or was yesterday. But that also means I'm at a point in my career where I best spend my time helping other engineers develop; if I can master the skill of making my accumulated decades of experience and knowledge, and whatever little wisdom may be found in that, of use to engineers who still have the time and drive to make the most of it in ways I maybe failed to do - well, I'll take it, you know? It's not the kind of work I came into this field to do, I suppose, but I've done enough of it by now to know both that I can do it, and that it is very much worth doing.

So, in that spirit and quite seriously meant - I might be off work sick this afternoon, one peril I'm finding attends ever more frequently upon advancing age, but evidently that's no barrier to improving the core skill that I intend to build the rest of my career around. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to help make that possible today, and here's likewise hoping you find all the success you desire!

Thanks again. Get well quick!

BTW, your CV is down, again due to relying on hidden complexity (Stack Exchange Jobs is extinct). You made me curious so I stalked you a bit :D

https://aaron-m.com/about

Hahaha, that's perfect. I'll fix it when I get the chance, thanks again!