You build it, you fix it

An interesting observation:

Yep, the best way to completely automate operations is to have to developers be responsible for running the software they develop. It is painful at times, but also means considerable creativity gets applied to a very important aspect of the software stack. It also brings developers into direct contact with customers and a very effective feedback loop starts. There is no separate operations department at Amazon: you build it; you run it.

There are some good objections, of course — Sarbanes-Oxley, the importance of not slowing new application development, and the impracticality of having developers take on this role in a world of five-nines and a 24-7 NOC — but I'm sure advances could be made in a lot of instances if developers felt more obliged to ease the maintenance of their software.

Via Intertwingly.

Posted at 2006-07-19 20:27:43 by Richard • Link to You build it, you …

Flow

There's a great sense of satisfaction that comes from sitting down at a blank screen in the afternoon, finishing up at 1am with an elegant, working, 250-line self-contained implementation of a new idea, commented and documented. Programmers will know the feeling: when everything you write, no matter how complex, is right first time, and you can see it.

I started testing it this morning, and sure enough it works as designed. That's a pretty good feeling, too!

Posted at 2006-07-19 11:20:58 by Richard • Link to Flow