> But how to build an executable I can wrap in a systemd process running on a different machine? Those are actions people do, not expressed so much in code I can look at.
The former sounds like a makefile, and the latter sounds like a Terraform plan (perhaps combined with something like Kubernetes manifests, but that’s getting more architecture-specific). These days I don’t think there’s any excuse to use the point-and-click approach for setting up infrastructure: it’s effortful, bug-prone, a security hazard, means everyone has to be trained in yet another area, and risks accidentally spending far more money than you intend (either by using surprisingly expensive services like Spanner, or by inadvertently leaving unused infrastructure running).
That said, I do agree that platforms like AWS are unnecessarily complex for the vast majority of CRUD web developers. The complexity makes sense for the small percentage of people who are genuinely setting up a very idiosyncratic and unique architecture, but the 98% of CRUD developers really need an opinionated platform, perhaps built on top of AWS/GCP/Azure and modelled on v1 platforms like Heroku, which would set up the infrastructure you need for the average web backend.
> The former sounds like a makefile, and the latter sounds like a Terraform plan (perhaps combined with something like Kubernetes manifests, but that’s getting more architecture-specific).
Were you trying to further illustrate the tooling point?
Made multiple contributions to the CairoGraphics project back in the day. Biggest problem? The insane "clever" Makefile structure one of the maintainers had set up. It worked as long as it worked. If it needed to change, one guy alone pretty much was able to tune/change it. It was a language unto itself.
Sorry, I was responding to the “not expressed so much in code I can look at” point. All these things should be expressed in code nowadays. I’m sure some Makefiles are excessively complex - and Terraform and K8s manifests surely as well - but you should hopefully be able to hunt down some good ones.
The former sounds like a makefile, and the latter sounds like a Terraform plan (perhaps combined with something like Kubernetes manifests, but that’s getting more architecture-specific). These days I don’t think there’s any excuse to use the point-and-click approach for setting up infrastructure: it’s effortful, bug-prone, a security hazard, means everyone has to be trained in yet another area, and risks accidentally spending far more money than you intend (either by using surprisingly expensive services like Spanner, or by inadvertently leaving unused infrastructure running).
That said, I do agree that platforms like AWS are unnecessarily complex for the vast majority of CRUD web developers. The complexity makes sense for the small percentage of people who are genuinely setting up a very idiosyncratic and unique architecture, but the 98% of CRUD developers really need an opinionated platform, perhaps built on top of AWS/GCP/Azure and modelled on v1 platforms like Heroku, which would set up the infrastructure you need for the average web backend.