Software Engineering

A lot of ink is spent on the “monoliths vs. microservices” debate, but the real issue behind this debate is about whether distributed system architecture is worth the developer time and cost overheads. By thinking about the real operational considerations of our systems, we can get some insight into whether we actually need distributed systems for most things. We have all gotten so familiar with virtualization and abstractions between our software and the servers that run it.

Python and Assembly have one thing in common: as a professional software engineer, they are both languages that you probably should know how to read, but be terrified to write. These languages seem to be (and are) at opposite ends of the spectrum: One is almost machine code, and the other is almost a scripting language. One is beginner-friendly and the other is seen as hostile to experts. One is viciously versatile with tons of libraries and ports, and the other is ridiculously limited in its capabilities.