Infrastructure as code would be easy if we cared

A response to Infrastructure as code might be literally impossible

What if I told you:

• Some languages are perceived as terribly difficult, but are easy

• I'm not surprised MRI is buggy. It's written in C

• I'm not surprised apt is buggy. It's written in C

• You don't have to read every line to understand code if you:

  • Understand the laws the code obeys

  • Require proof

• We already know better ways of building computer systems

  • (I do work that requires a lower defect rate than a lot of software)

• Abstraction works

  • The "law" of leaky abstractions is false

  • Worse, it's convinced a generation of engineers that broken abstractions are ok

• We need to be realistic about how much we care about correctness

  • If you're using ruby, you've already put a lower bound on your defect rate

  • Functional-language marketing is dishonest:

    • We say "spend the same amount of time and have fewer defects"

    • But any real business:

      • Knows what their acceptable defect rate is

      • Is already operating at it

    • So: defect rate homeostasis

    • The real value proposition is "move faster and have the same number of defects"

    • But we treat a nonzero defect rate as a moral failing

• Big companies already adjust e.g. twitter:

  • Initially written in Ruby

  • Fail whale

  • Rewritten in Scala as correctness became more important

• Thinking bigger is already happening

  • nix/nixos is the bigger solution to package management you were asking for

  • (but it's written in C++, so it's probably still buggy)

• If reducing your defect rate is important to you:

  • Stop using Ruby

  • Stop using C tools

  • Idris if you really care

  • Haskell/F#/OCaml/Scala if you care a bit

  • (Yes you can achieve a low defect rate in C, but it's more expensive than using better tools)

• It's not impossible to do it right. It's not even hard

  • We just don't care enough

    • And there's nothing wrong with that!

    • Users value features more than correctness

    • The free market works

  • But let's be honest about it

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