Select * from cloud

Re:Select * from cloud by 0xbadcafebee on Friday September 30, 2022 @12:57PM (#33037355)

People keep twisting themselves into knots trying to fit things into these labels, but the net effect is unrelated to the description.

Using a "declarative language":

  my_bucket = aws_s3_bucket(aws_region, bucket_name)

Using an "imperative language":

  if aws_s3_bucket.exists(aws_region, bucket_name):
    my_bucket = aws_s3_bucket.update(aws_region, bucket_name)
  else:
    my_bucket = aws_s3_bucket.create(aws_region, bucket_name)

I prefer the latter. In every DSL I've ever used, people end up needing to handle weird edge cases, and it's extremely hard to do that with a "declarative-only" DSL, so they end up adding imperative-ness to the DSL. Give me a regular "imperative" programming language and lots of convenience functions that do black magic behind the scenes, and I'll do regular programming when the black magic falls short.

This is basically why AWS CDK / Terraform CDK / Pulumi exist.

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Re:Select * from cloud by mirekrusin on Friday September 30, 2022 @02:49PM (#33038984)

...and you have nice imperative race condition right there in your simple example.

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Re:Select * from cloud by johnthescott on Friday September 30, 2022 @07:29PM (#33042038)

bravo.

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Re:Select * from cloud by 0xbadcafebee on Friday September 30, 2022 @04:24PM (#33040302)

From a simplistic point of view, yes, but from a practical standpoint, no. IaC assumes a global lock on any resources being managed. As soon as that expectation is violated, everything starts breaking, regardless of how good the code is.

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