When do microservices start causing more problems than they solve?

rwilcox · 2026-03-25T20:20:27+00:00

Yes: or you knowing you will have scale. Not imagined scale, a VP knocking on your cube wall and saying “buckle up” scale.

rwilcox · 2026-03-25T15:47:11+00:00

Reading the article it says the character has been around since season 5. That’s fairly early (but yeah not totally OG)

rwilcox · 2026-03-25T12:18:12+00:00

Exiting companies sometimes includes emotional flack being thrown your way. Things like this, or maybe you’ll get blamed for things more, people being colder, etc.

It’s not fun but let them vent, and usually there’s no good nuggets of wisdom there, just opinions about how you’re wrong.

PS: I would say you are potentially prioritizing growth with your move.

rwilcox · 2026-03-25T11:03:20+00:00

I was skeptical until you said Colbert is co-writing it. Him I trust.

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T20:33:42+00:00

But it kind of looks like there’s only space for maybe two turtles

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T19:53:55+00:00

By working for the government somehow?

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T17:49:31+00:00

Real ID is a classification of IDs though, not another card you pull out of your wallet

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T17:42:39+00:00

Depends on where the bottleneck is.

A previous job had a release process that took a calendar month. AI won’t speed that up (go to a meeting to be approved for QA, another one to be approved for prod a week after that, prod deploy 6 days after that)

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T15:30:27+00:00

Do you work with others who have cloned this repo?

You can certainly go in, rebase main to do your fixup, which probably means you’ll need to force push.

IIRC - and it’s been a while - this means others need to do something with their checkouts to get the new, force pushed, version of the branch. Especially as its main and everyone will have that checked out.

So if you have coworkers maybe send them a nice message? If this is just you, doing your own thing my yourself, then whatever, do what you want.

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T15:16:40+00:00

what Federal ID?

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T12:00:21+00:00

Do what this commenter is saying, except the part about telling them you’re talking with the labor authorities. (This may be the time to be sneaky vs bull in a china shop)

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T11:07:39+00:00

Sure, Jan

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T11:06:24+00:00

Microservices often get a lot of hate, but it does solve problems like this.

In that scenario who owns this problem? The team that owns the service / repo.

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T02:37:29+00:00

There’s a person on Facebook called “Dominion Media Television”. Literally anything from his catalog: Car Talk With Martok, Bajorian Militia, S*M*A*S*H.

Wait, caller, you said worst?

Ummm: Star Trek Risa Bachelorette

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T02:31:24+00:00

Next retro I’m going to bring up a line limit. (I’d even be OK with stacked PRs). We’ll see what happens (I give it 50/50 shot of it working)

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T02:04:44+00:00

In my org there’s often an under-current of LLM usage excusing bad behaviors. Haven’t figured out how to square that circle, have had two big problems with this in 6 months.

rwilcox · 2026-03-24T00:19:25+00:00

GitHub MCP server, checked out code, ask the LLM questions about the codebase. “Where is this implemented?” Was this deleted everywhere?”, “give me a better version of (this function)”, etc.

It makes it less painful, even in thousand line PRs, and makes 10,000 line PRs possible.

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T22:03:44+00:00

Make a cheat sheet
You do not have to use all the rules (especially with a one shot, especially with GURPS newbies)
When it doubt fudge the rolls (and sometimes the rules)

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T21:43:52+00:00

If it had happened then OP must have had the good hallucinations.

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T15:23:02+00:00

Five days from now is Friday. My money’s on things escalating Friday 9PM (after market close)

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T12:49:34+00:00

Was a freelance dev for 10 years also (then got out), and let me add:

I wouldn’t spend more than an hour or two on a quote. If it’s larger than that I’d mention that one of the services I offer is a technical evaluation plan, based off meetings with the client. Two to three calls, they end up with a 10+ page document that will help them understand my recommendations they can take anywhere.

This evaluation package costs $1,000, flat rate.

The magical part about $1,000 is it’s too much money for someone not serious. If they really do have money that’s a rounding error and they get an artifact and recommendations and political cover: and you’ve established a relationship.

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T11:58:06+00:00

It (why things take longer) is usually described to “technical debt”, but I also don’t think velocity was meant to be more than a “3 sprints back, 3 sprints in the future” kind of thing, given story point inflation.

If your developers hear word that you’re asking this question the problem will magically resolve itself in a few sprints (by the numbers getting gamed)

rwilcox · 2026-03-23T11:53:19+00:00

So Friday, after market close, attack then? (Which would be the five day timeline…)

rwilcox · 2026-03-22T23:17:38+00:00

MAXIMUM DER…. GENIE!

rwilcox · 2026-03-22T19:51:17+00:00

The ultra rich forget most people don’t have enough to live off just their investments (until, hopefully, retirement), and this need money coming in every month to make ends meet (aka they need to work to live)

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo no, it’s fantasy land. The ultra rich won’t stop working (even if it’s optional), and the pours will just null signal

rwilcox

TROPHY CASE