The Silver Bullet Syndrome

The Silver Bullet Syndrome

Alexey Vasiliev, Railsware

Alexey Vasiliev

• Web and Mobile Developer (Ruby, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, C/C++, Golang, Elixir/Erlang), DevOps
• Open-Source libs: PGTune, SQL Joins Visualizer, RWbox, Go-Kinesis, ElixirV8, WebP-ffi, Zopfli-ffi, MongodbLogger, SMTRails, SHTRails, ...
• Open-Source books: Cooking Infrastructure by Chef, Setting up and scaling of PostgreSQL (Russian)
• Leading RWpod podcast about Ruby and JavaScript

We have Agile

• Stand-ups
• Sprints/Iterations
• Stories and Story Walls
• Retrospectives
• Showcases
• SCRUM

BUT...

When it's time to deploy

Let's use another buzzword

• Culture (TEAM have the same GOAL and AUTONOMOUS)
• Automation (CI, Continuous Deployment, Infrastructure as Code, etc)
• Measurement (performance, process and people metrics)
• Sharing (No SPECIALIST, share data, visibility)

I love Ruby and Rails

BUT "Rails doesn’t scale"

Why "Rails doesn’t scale"?

• Twitter was moving off of Rails in 2011
• People took the phrase and ran with it:
  • sometimes to make a quick explanation about a software choice
  • sometimes to sound smart
  • sometimes because it fit the context in which it was said

BUT...

Rails can scale

• Scalability is an architectural concern - not confined to language or framework
• The stateless part of project very simple to scale
• Even traditional relational databases scale

How this myth was created?

• Rails can help you to build web app very quick (15 minutes blog)
• Let's use Rails for every project!!!
• Something goes wrong :( (for Twitter use case)
• "Rails doesn’t scale"!!! (but scale for github, hulu, airbnb, etc)

Docker for containers

Create own PaaS with Docker

Docker for microservices

Future is Bright: JavaScript everywhere

JavaScript ecosystem

The Birth of Universal JavaScript

• Server side rendering isn't smooth
• Let's do client side
• Client side rendering is hard
• Let's create a framework
• I lost my CEO!
• Let's create another framework

Technology Lifecycle

• 10: Create new Framework
• 20: Create Conference around Framework
• 30: GOTO 10

React.js is hot right now

Flux approach

Ergonomics Vs User Needs

All code has a cost

All code has a cost

What's your point?

There is no Silver Bullet!

Why are we developing software?

Why are we developing software?

• Software isn't the goal
• Upgrades aren't the goal
• We can't always be on the latest and greatest
• Innovation and improvement are good. But what are we improving? How does it bring value?

How do we make choices when adopting technology?

Do we have same needs as Google, Facebook, Wallmart, Twitter?

Benchmarks

Social Pressure

Context!

Like "Best Practices" need context

Do we take into account...

• Technology stability
• Is it proven technology?
• What's the learning curve
• Market share

Frameworks: Do we take into account...

• Has the framework been proved in production?
• What is the framework really capable of?
• Is the framework mature?
• Is the framework flexible or opinionated?
• Have you really played with the framework?
• Does the framework have a comprehensive set of documentation?
• Have you reviewed the community around the framework?

Focus on the right things!

<Thank You!> Questions?