On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 08:58:59AM -0500, Mark Burgess wrote: >The speaker suggests that one should *try* to avoid complexity, but CFEngine's >job is to cope with / model >configuration complexity that others have created, i.e. (state) in a simple >way. The disciplines it brings >encourages users to design simplicity, making things more declarative and >non-intertwined (autonomous) and eliminating >imperative threads that complect what with how. > >This complexity cannot necessarily be removed (there is a concept of necessary >and sufficient complexity), >so we should not *oversimplify* a model.
"Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler." --A. Einstein (more or less: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/) >2. the internal design of CFEngine's implementation. > > >In writing CFEngine 3, the use of the promise model led to considerable >disentanglement of code, compared to CFEngine 2, >though there might still be parts in the lower subsystems that could be >further disentangled. It was necessary >to have a model to understand how to disentangle issues. In my view Puppet >more deeply entangled the modelling >issues, sacrificing simple for easy. That's an interesting distinction. I'll need to chew on it a bit. >-------- Original Message -------- >Subject: How easy/simple is cfengine? >Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:09:12 +0100 >From: Mark Burgess <m...@cfengine.com><mailto:m...@cfengine.com> >To: help-cfengine ><Help-cfengine@cfengine.org><mailto:Help-cfengine@cfengine.org> > > > >Mikhail, one of our very brilliant developers, recently brought this >talk to my attention. I just had time to look at this and it is very >good. The talk is a most excellent discussion about making choices about >easy versus simple in software. I recommend everyone to watch this and >absorb its content. > >It is very relevant to the discussion about making CFEngine >easier/simpler, also vis a vis the choices made by Puppet/Chef versus >CFEngine, etc etc - and I very much agree with the speaker's viewpoint. >He does not provide any answers, but he poses important questions: the >best kind of talk. > >M > >PS - Category theory (re: monads) is a form of mathematics, akin to set >theory which is often used to explain anything by pulling the wool over >people's eyes :) > > > >_______________________________________________ >Help-cfengine mailing list >Help-cfengine@cfengine.org >https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine -- Jesse Becker NHGRI Linux support (Digicon Contractor) _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
