Is there a support group for serverless devs worki...
# randoms
Seth Geoghegan
03/08/2022, 6:28 PMIs there a support group for serverless devs working in an organization that doesn't embrace serverless tech? You know, somewhere we could come up with thoughtful responses to questions like "can't we just do this in EC2?"
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thdxr
03/08/2022, 6:33 PMhave you tried responding "shut up"
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Matt Morgan
03/08/2022, 7:16 PMI don't know if this helps you, but I literally believe my org's strategy was they expected to watch me fail and then have to roll everything back. Things worked out a bit differently than that and you can't put the genie back in the bottle....
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Gjorgji Kjosev
03/08/2022, 8:39 PM"We could do it in EC2, yea. We could also probably do it in C or perhaps assembly" 😄
Gjorgji Kjosev
03/08/2022, 8:41 PMon a more serious note, I usually list the pros and cons. Talk to the EC2 people, write down their concerns in a doc (in detail), try to address them
Gjorgji Kjosev
03/08/2022, 8:41 PMusually there is some hidden concern which may or may not be valid... if its addressed you might get a sigh of relief 😄
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Seth Geoghegan
03/08/2022, 8:41 PMI think it commonly comes down to a lack of familiarity with a given tech, which is fair
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Gjorgji Kjosev
03/08/2022, 8:43 PMI can tell you my typical concerns with serverless 😄
Gjorgji Kjosev
03/08/2022, 8:46 PM(which... actually might depend on whether we consider containers to be serverless or not)
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thdxr
03/08/2022, 8:47 PMThe pushback you're getting isn't "real" pushback. It's mostly hesitation around any change, becoming a beginner again, acknowledging someone else is more aware of something than you, etc. How you deal with this probably doesn't have too much serverless specific approaches. Explaining why serverless is better than doing it in EC2 for a bunch of logical reasons probably won't get you a response besides "that sounds really complicated and we can already do all of that"
thdxr
03/08/2022, 8:49 PMI'd suggest maybe thinking about it a different way where you find opportunities to build with serverless and build excitement around it. Avoid asking people to use it or suggesting it, just treat it like this other thing that you're playing with + sharing exciting things about it here and there
thdxr
03/08/2022, 8:49 PMEventually people will want to be in the know and research it themselves and then bring it up to you as though it's their idea
thdxr
03/08/2022, 8:49 PMThis is the only approach I've ever seen work at larger / established orgs where things feel entrenched
thdxr
03/08/2022, 8:51 PMThe root issue is if you're bringing something new and the response isn't excitement to at least learn as much as possible, you're dealing with an underlying resistance to change
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Seth Geoghegan
03/09/2022, 12:43 AMYeah, much of this resonates with my experience. The response I've seen often falls into two groups 1) I don't understand serverless so I won't use it and 2) I undersetand it and prefer not to use it. I think most of what I've faced is in the first group. They reach for the tools that are familiar to them, which is not serverless.
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thdxr
03/09/2022, 4:32 AMyeah I might be more cynical because of my experiences but it's been really hard for me to create organizational change like this when the culture isn't excited about new things
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solsglasses
03/09/2022, 8:42 PMI deal with this every day of my life. Sometimes I get in the mood to start a DevOps podcast. This would be one of the top/recurring talking points. I think about it often, but I’m not gonna do it
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Seth Geoghegan
03/09/2022, 8:49 PMUntil then, you have a safe space here to vent 😆
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solsglasses
03/09/2022, 8:50 PMThanks man
solsglasses
03/09/2022, 8:50 PMAnother slack I’m on has #cryparty for stuff like this. I’m not recommending it, it’s kind of a shitshow, just saying
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Seth Geoghegan
03/10/2022, 12:51 AMI converted a SLS app to SST and gave a demo today. One of the questions from the audience "if we push our development environment to the cloud, what happens when the services go down?" 🤦♂️
Seth Geoghegan
03/10/2022, 12:51 AMA common refrain from the mythical "I only develop cloud software without network connectivity" crowd.
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Matt Morgan
03/10/2022, 12:54 AMI think that problem needs to be framed in terms of trade-offs.
Matt Morgan
03/10/2022, 12:58 AMYou gain acceleration and understanding. You lose that "I can write cloud apps from my bunker with no wifi" glow. Or maybe say a rare outage will disrupt work. Likewise, an IAM messup (OTOH the IAM problem when you're on your way to prod is MUCH WORSE).
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Gjorgji Kjosev
03/10/2022, 10:19 AMyeah that's why I'm big on pros/cons lists
Gjorgji Kjosev
03/10/2022, 10:21 AMif I acknowledge and review the concerns the other side is having and manage to present them fairly in the doc I typically have reasonable chance of success.