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Semelhante a Platform as reflection of values: Joyent, node.js, and beyond
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Platform as reflection of values: Joyent, node.js, and beyond
- 1. Platform as a reďŹection of values Joyent, node.js, and beyond CTO bryan@joyent.com Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill
- 2. Platform and values ⢠Software platform decisions are big, important decisions with lasting consequences ⢠One doesnât merely select component infrastructure for where it is, but also where itâs going â and what it represents ⢠In the post-open source world of software infrastructure, this is reďŹected and guided by a communityâs values ⢠Beyond right tool for the job, it is the right values for the job⌠⢠âŚand then the right software for the values
- 3. Some platform values ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 4. Platform core values ⢠All of these values are important â but they are in tension ⢠Platforms aspire to balance all of them â but for every platform some small subset represents its core values ⢠These core values attract a like-minded community â and become self-reinforcingâŚ
- 5. Platform core values: Seventh Edition Unix ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 6. Platform core values: OpenBSD ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 7. Platform values: K ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 8. Platform values: Awk ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 9. Platform values: ZFS ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 10. Platform values: DTrace ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 11. Platform values: node.js circa 2010 ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 12. Joyentâs core values (historically): ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 13. Joyentâs core values (now): ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 14. Growing core values ⢠While the core values can mutate over time, it usually isnât with the same people; core values often track people ⢠Ideally, a community is able to grow its core values by attracting and welcoming people with those new values ⢠In 2010, there was reason for optimism for node.js, as it was enjoying an inďŹux of technologists bearing the scars from failed experiments in Twisted Python, Event Machine, C, etc.
- 15. The node.js demographic circa 2010
- 16. Growing core values: Debuggability ⢠As we at Joyent built our own production infrastructure on node.js, we began to need to assert some of our own values⌠⢠It started with debuggability as we added: ⢠DTrace probes in node.js core (2010) ⢠DTrace probes in arbitrary node.js (2011) ⢠MDB support (postmortem!) for node.js with mdb_v8 (2011) ⢠DTrace ustack() helper for node.js (2011)
- 17. Growing core values: Rigor ⢠As we hit performance problems in production, we made heavy use of the DTrace ustack() helper for proďŹling ⢠The need for rigor in understanding this output inspired us to invent ďŹame graphs (2012) to visualize node.js stacks:
- 18. Growing core values: Maintainability ⢠As we had more and more services in node.js, we found the need for a uniďŹed logging library⌠⢠We developed Bunyan in 2012, reďŹecting not only our values of maintainability but also debuggability (DTrace probes built in!) ⢠Bunyan also reďŹects our value of stability: we needed abstractions that we could build upon!
- 19. Growing core values: Robustness ⢠We found that the de facto modules in several critical areas didnât entirely reďŹect our own values â especially around robustness and debuggability ⢠For building REST-based services we developed Restify (2011), with an emphasis on RFC compliance and debuggability ⢠For constructing robust asynchronous pipelines, we developed vasync (2012), with a focus on error handling and debuggability
- 20. Growing core values: Robustness ⢠An early problem â and one with many dynamic languages â is increasing memory usage over time ⢠Itâs easy to errantly hold a reference to an entire object graph! ⢠We added â::ďŹndjsobjectsâ to mdb_v8 (2012) and have used to ďŹnd many thorny production problems ⢠We later added the ability to iterate over all functions with â::jsfunctionsâ (!) â and then the ability to actually print the variables in a closure with â::jsclosureâ (!!)
- 21. Growing core values: Stability ⢠We maintained quite a few binary add-ons â and immediately saw the need for stability in the interface ⢠Stability does not mean intransigence or stasis! ⢠Stability means developing the right abstractions that can survive future change on both sides of the interface boundary ⢠C++ can make this difďŹcult task much more challenging⌠⢠We developed v8plus (2012), a C interface for add-ons that we continue to use in lieu of NAN (or N-API)
- 22. Growing core values: Resiliency ⢠Our experience trying to incorporate resiliency in our node.js- based systems led us to taxonomize node.js errors ⢠The resulting document quickly became authoritative; searching ânode.js error handlingâ + âIâm feeling luckyâ still yields it:
- 23. The challenge of changing values ⢠Just because we believed in production-oriented values like debuggability, robustness, and stability doesnât mean these values were widely shared! ⢠Values arenât necessarily contagious! ⢠The node.js community broadly identiďŹed more closely with growth-oriented values like approachability, expressiveness, and velocity ⢠By 2014, these values were increasingly coming into conďŹict, and a fracture was (in retrospect) inevitableâŚ
- 24. Farewell Node.js
- 26. Farewell to TJ ⢠TJ Holowaychuk was the most proliďŹc node module contributor; if nothing else, probably wrote more node.js than anyone else ⢠TJ wasnât the ďŹrst; there had been foreshocks:
- 27. The challenge of large communities ⢠The departures highlight a challenge with larger communities⌠⢠When communities are large, values can easily conďŹict or become diluted ⢠Smaller communities identify more strongly with their values â but larger communities are more likely to fracture over them ⢠Sometimes this is a fork, but more often, people just leave ⢠Sometimes the values change because people leave, but more often people leave because the values change (or fail to!)
- 28. Divergent values ⢠We erred in either not recognizing or not articulating that the io.js fork in late 2014 represented divergent values ⢠Even to the degree that we recognized it and articulated it, not clear that it mattered: the problem was the divergence itself ⢠The problem was even more basic at root: we held aspirations for the values of node.js that it didnât hold for itself ⢠The values of node.js are (and probably have long been) the values of JavaScript itselfâŚ
- 29. Platform values: node.js circa 2015 ⢠Approachability ⢠Availability ⢠Compatibility ⢠Composability ⢠Debuggability ⢠Expressiveness ⢠Extensibility ⢠Interoperability ⢠Integrity ⢠Maintainability ⢠Measurability ⢠Operability ⢠Performance ⢠Portability ⢠Resiliency ⢠Rigor ⢠Robustness ⢠Safety ⢠Security ⢠Simplicity ⢠Stability ⢠Thoroughness ⢠Transparency ⢠Velocity
- 30. node.js ⢠The values for JavaScript/node.js and our values didnât align â and it was clear that they werenât going to ⢠We transitioned node.js to a foundation in 2015 ⢠But many in the community putatively believed in our values (or wanted to), so we remained engaged ⢠This hasnât been easy, and one issue in particular highlights the challenge in accommodating divergent valuesâŚ
- 31. Promises ⢠Promises are a different way of asynchronous programming, dating back to Argus, a CLU derivative from the mid-1980s:⨠⨠⨠⨠⨠⨠⢠node.js was originally implemented in terms of promises, but removed them entirely in February 2010 (0.2!)
- 32. Promises ⢠Because of their use in broader JavaScript, demand grew to reintroduce promise support in node.js⌠⢠But JavaScript promises conďŹate operational errors with programmatic errors in that they both become exceptions ⢠Unlike thrown exceptions absent promises, we cannot know if a thrown exception in a promise is going to be later caught or not ⢠This makes it challenging to abort a process on, say, a type error with enough information to debug it post-mortem ⢠Promises make writing robust software more difďŹcult
- 33. Promises ⢠Promises embody the divergence of values in modern node.js: approachability, compatibility and expressiveness in tension with robustness, debuggability, and simplicity ⢠If node.js must do whatever JavaScript does in the name of compatibility, is node.js permitted its own values? ⢠This conundrum was on vivid display in the util.promisify() PR:⨠⨠https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/12442â¨
- 36. Promises ⢠This is not an issue of someone being right or wrong! ⢠These are two different value systems â both admirable and reasonable â coming into conďŹict ⢠This issue was put to a vote: 9 in favor, 1 against, 4 abstained ⢠But elections do not resolve differences in values ⢠Democracy does not necessarily imply leadership!
- 37. The challenge for Joyent ⢠We at Joyent are resigned to the divergence in values ⢠This doesnât mean weâre abandoning node.js⌠⢠âŚbut it does mean that we are actively considering other platforms when making future software platform decisions ⢠In the coming year(s), you will certainly see us in the Go community â and perhaps Rust or others ⢠These communities arenât necessarily a perfect reďŹection of our values either â but we feel better prepared for any divergence
- 38. The challenge for node.js ⢠node.js should deďŹne what its values are â and arenât ⢠Growth may be an objective, but growth is not a value! ⢠Claptrap around values that node.js doesnât in fact have only plants the seeds of disappointment and discord ⢠node.js should be upfront that compatibility with JavaScript will trump robustness, debuggability, stability, etc. ⢠We remain hopeful that node.js will be a big enough tent to not run so counter to our values that we abandon it entirely!
- 39. Platform as a reďŹection of values ⢠When picking a platform, values matter ⢠Get consensus on values before selecting a platform! ⢠With values in hand, the challenge becomes: how does one determine the values of a community? ⢠How a community deals with an open issue reďŹects much on its values around robustness, thoroughness, rigor, etc. ⢠Itâs a balance between your values and that of a community⌠⢠âŚthat may require you to create your own platform and attract your own community bound by like values!