20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Job
Posted by Successful_Bowl2564@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 35 comments
Posted by Successful_Bowl2564@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 35 comments
FineClassroom2085@reddit
This was a pleasure to read, have you written any books?
VictoryMotel@reddit
The title isn't even a coherent sentence.
perciva@reddit
It's a title, not a sentence. But also: If you don't understand what "Never Not My Job" refers to, you're not really the target audience.
VictoryMotel@reddit
There is literally no context to the awkward clickbait nonsense, so maybe their target audience is people who like that.
perciva@reddit
Anyone who has ever worked at Amazon should get the reference: https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-principles
VictoryMotel@reddit
Maybe inside jokes aren't the best basis for writing article titles.
perciva@reddit
If you're talking to me (the author of that post): Not unless you count my doctoral thesis. I don't really have patience for that sort of long-form writing; if a book ever comes out with my name on it, odds are that it was ghostwritten by an experienced and patient author who interviewed me to gather the content for it.
FineClassroom2085@reddit
Fair enough. If you change your mind (or can find a ghost writer to write like you) I guarantee there’s a market.
perciva@reddit
Thanks! Any particular topics you'd like to see me write a book about?
zell2002@reddit
Just jumping in here, in the article you said:
exceptions are an inherently poor way of handling errors because they make it easier to write bugs which won't be immediately obvious on casual code inspection
Im curious if you could elaborate on this a bit? Or point me in a direction to read more. I can't imagine not using Exceptions, but would love to see some examples of where it's best not to use and how to code around it. If possible!
perciva@reddit
Ok, so basically there's two options for handling errors. The old-school approach (which I consider to be technically superior) is "if (function returns nonzero indicating error) { do error handling }". The exception approach is "try { stuff } catch ( ... ) { handle failure }".
The problem is, what happens when an error is not handled?
With the return-error approach, things explode immediately. You're using variables which weren't initialized, trying to read from a file which wasn't opened, et cetera. That sort of failure gets found fast -- often just by looking at the code and saying "wait, you're calling a function which can fail and not checking if it failed".
With the exception approach, the fact that a failure occurred bubbles up until it gets caught. At some point you catch the exception and you don't do anything which would explode immediately... but you quietly missed a layer of cleanup calls because you didn't catch the exception in the right place.
If you're really careful you make sure that every single function call is wrapped with try/catch... but at that point you've basically reimplemented return-error on top of exceptions, except with extra verbosity.
FineClassroom2085@reddit
You’ve been a dev for a while, just something like this blog post where you talk about your experience (especially pre AI) working on specific initiatives, with big tech companies, etc. Whatever has been impactful to you over the years. The philosophies you’ve hard won during your experience.
Successful_Bowl2564@reddit (OP)
not the author of the article but am building this : https://voiden.md/
Proof-Attention-7940@reddit
There’s actually still a product listing for this on the retail website:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006CFDN/
sligit@reddit
Argh, SOAP flashbacks!
gjionergqwebrlkbjg@reddit
A lot of AWS APIs are SOAP, for example all S3 APIs. That plus envelope signing is why nobody uses them without an SDK.
teknikly-correct@reddit
I snorted, but dang, it really do be like that out there.
reorganizedChaos@reddit
Great write up OP! Interesting history throughout and indeed well written. Thanks for sharing.
KiwiFisher1@reddit
"Never not my job" is either the best engineering mindset or the fastest road to burnout. Usually both at the same time.
acadian_cajun@reddit
I can’t fathom doing this much free work for a trillion dollar corporation. Good on him for finding something that satisfies him i guess.
samorollo@reddit
Not mobile-friendly site :(
who_am_i_to_say_so@reddit
An authentic backend-er 😂
rasteri@reddit
pinch my balls
who_am_i_to_say_so@reddit
dink There ya go, buddy.
That’ll put a spring in your step.
omniuni@reddit
You can't. It's partially coded to the browser width, so it just magnifies a column 2.5 words wide.
pballer2oo7@reddit
Reading Mode
falconzord@reddit
Worked fine for me on Firefox
Globbi@reddit
I don't understand what you mean. I opened in firefox on mobile. It loaded instantly. No popups, banner, menus that would expand moving elements of the page. Black letters on white background with some margin, stretched to my screen size, completely readable. Reader mode works perfectly if preferred.
bizkut@reddit
It's heinous in the in-app browser reddit tries to load. If you pop it open in a real browser it looks fine though
samorollo@reddit
Oh, I haven't thought that it could be different in native browser, thanks!
DevelopersOfBallmer@reddit
If it's still not the best reader mode on Firefox mobile fixes it.
simonides_@reddit
Open it in chrome and open reader mode - works perfectly
6158675309@reddit
Just use reader view or whatever your mobile bro calls it
reorganizedChaos@reddit
Great write up OP! Interesting history throughout and indeed well written. Thanks for sharing.
Economy_Walk_2143@reddit
that’s a pretty different mindset compared to how most of us build now
20 years on one system and still feeling responsible for it is real ownership
not just shipping and moving on, but living with the decisions long term
also shows how infra work never really ends
it just evolves and you stay accountable the whole time
kind of a reminder that “done” in software is mostly an illusion