bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦
Stole this idea from @daedalus - the cloud is the new mainframe. Since then we had a few decades of hardware and software portability. And we are now back at "pick a cloud vendor and lock yourself in".
Mar 11 at 7:27amWeb
Show threadbert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Mar 11
@daedalus to this I also say "well done everyone".
Show threadJPMar 11
@bert_hubert It is possible to decouple but it's not trivial. Extremely worthwhile, though. You can save an absolute fortune. The state of web dev these days, my $DEITY.
Show threadbert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Mar 11
@daedalus From this same presentation, after some bragging about opentk.nl and galmon.eu:
Show threadTobias FiebigMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus Marten van Steen had this thing about the sinus waves of computing (client-centric to server-centric to client-centric to... ) Still amazed how right he was.
Show threadbert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Mar 11
@tfiebig @daedalus "everything oscillates" - partially we forgot the trauma of being locked in, and then after a while, we allow it to happen again. Such forgetting is what enables the oscillation.
Show threadSeda GürsesMar 11
@bert_hubert @tfiebig @daedalus maybe better to say the industry has been iterating on the compute model and its stickiness through shifts in software production…the computer game is also a software production game, you don’t address one, you can’t address the other.
Show threadKapitän ClownfeuerMar 11

My favourite mainframe manufacturer initials was ICL: in reality “International Computers Limited”, but colloquially “It Can’t Last”

Fitting initials, that always work 😉

Show threadFirstyearMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus Yeah my lecturer at uni circa 2010 said it was cyclical, going from local machcines to mainframes to local machines and he predicted the trend back to "mainframes" would occur again.
Show threadMark PriorMar 11

@bert_hubert @daedalus if you watch long enough you see the wheel turn and come back to where it started over and over again.

It always reminds me of the quote from King Lear ""The wheel is come full circle; I am here".

Show threadStijn van DrongelenMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus "Well, if we need to, we can just lift and... shit."
Show threadDennis MansellMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus Isn't it more positive? For the first time in years I'm talking about stacks instead of cloud ecosystems and about modularity instead of integration. My clients are acting like responsible participants instead of passive consumers. We in FLOSS should refrain from blaming the customer (and then maybe have a small 'I told you so party' :-))
Show threadJan PenfratMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus Meanwhile everybody's mainframe at home: 😋
Show threadHarld Mar 11

@bert_hubert

Including 'serverless' (like IMS), Horizontal scaling, availability, centralized access control (like RACF), virtualization (like LPARs), containers (like Address spaces), Encrypt everything (IBM's pervasive encryption).

And vendor lock-in because no one else deliver it anymore.

Cloud is not new..... :)

@daedalus

Show threadspdrnlMar 11

@bert_hubert @daedalus Interesting insight. The more because the cloud is a lot abouit IO, and mainframes excelled in IO.

Wasn't IBM executing cloud on their mainframes?

Show threadHans-Cees 🌳🌳🤢🦋🐈🐈🍋🍋🐝🐜Mar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus humans are essentially ants, they do whatever everyone else is doing, because then you are safe. Ants have no choice, neither do humans apparently
Show threadAngela ScholderMar 11
@hanscees @bert_hubert @daedalus Lemmings...
Show threadLéon van KammenMar 11
@bert_hubert I've been saying this from the beginning too. The reactions: "what's a mainframe?" :D
Show threadAleš ČasarMar 11

@bert_hubert Not exactly. The cloud is worse than mainframe. If you had a mainframe, you were able to manage it yourself, but you can't manage the cloud. At least not the cloud in this context.

@daedalus

Show threadKarl PetterssonMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus A similar idea here (2013)? https://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Eternal_Mainframe.html
The Eternal Mainframe

The urge to replace the mainframe has reinvented the mainframe and its problems.

Show threadJustin ScholzMar 11
@bert_hubert @daedalus maybe we should rebrand the „cloud“ as „MaaS“ - mainframe as a service?
Show threadTilaiMar 15
@bert_hubert @daedalus Do You have a bigger picture of the VAX? I would like to know what VAX it is and also I want to see it better. Sorry for the off topic - I am just into old super-computer lateley.
And your VAX here (the blackone, lower middle pic) is really nice!
Show threadbert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Mar 15
@Tilai @daedalus https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DEC_PDP-11_Minicomputer_in_extended_variant_%28edited%29.jpg it is this one it appears!
File:DEC PDP-11 Minicomputer in extended variant (edited).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Show threadTilaiMar 15
@bert_hubert @daedalus Thank you so much! Absoluteley beautiful.
It's not a VAX, is it? Well, I am still learning :)
Show threadTilaiMar 15
@bert_hubert @daedalus Wait a minute, now that I think about the actual content of your message, after having calmed myself down at the sight of the beauties:
Wasn't that precisely the problem that led to the death of the VAX system back then? That customers where locked with this vendor and this vendor alone?
are we looping?
🤔
Show threadbert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Mar 15
@Tilai yes, we are looping and not in a good way!