Yes, I Done Got a Real Job

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it later — I haven’t even been able to come up with 140 appropriate characters to announce it on Twitter. Anyway, the company has a reading club! Just three days at the office so still able to keep up with internal email somewhat, and finally checked out the paper said reading club intended to discuss. Right at the top, I could tell I probably wouldn’t truly grok the whole thing, but that I would certainly learn something:

• Expect failures. A component may crash or be stopped at any time. Dependent components might fail or be stopped at any time. There will be network failures. Disks will run out of space. Handle all failures gracefully.
• Keep things simple. Complexity breeds problems. Simple things are easier to get right. Avoid unnecessary dependencies. Installation should be simple. Failures on one server should have no impact on the rest of the data center.
• Automate everything. People make mistakes. People need sleep. People forget things. Automated processes are testable, fixable, and therefore ultimately much more reliable. Automate wherever possible.

Life lessons, people. Life lessons.