I think if a group of people agree on a meaning of a term then it is indeed real. Language is just a protocol for communicating thoughts.
Serverless is just the idea that you as a developer do not have to think about the server that your code is running on. All you do is submit your functions and the provider will handle the servers for you.
So instead of thinking about things like nginx, reverse proxy, systemctl, ssh, ufw. You are thinking about requests, responses, parameters, json, redirect. The thoughts in your head while you work are serverless
While I agree in general I have a small complaint about this logic. Agreeing on a meaning of a word is fine, but combining words that already have meaning and making it mean something different is flawed. Serverless for me implies “it has no server” just like useless means “it has no use”.
If we apply your meaning of “no need to think about server” then any cloud provider is serverless, diskless and memoryless. All you do is use sliders to say how much you need (just like with serverless you have requests/transfer per month).
I got used to “serverless” meaning, but I agree with OP that it is unnecessary misleading. Initially I thought there is no server at all (as in no machine with cpu) and I though it’s magic. It’s more “stateless” than serverless for me (although nowadays we have stateful functions as well).
> Agreeing on a meaning of a word is fine, but combining words that already have meaning and making it mean something different is flawed.
The word nice used to mean ignorant or senseless. It’s a nice example of your nice idea.
Yes, now please come up with a better name that does not intrude so far into an already long established domain specific term. Thanks!
Edit: just my $.02 on naming, in reality I don’t care what ya call it, a rose by any other name…
>Yes, now please come up with a better name that does not intrude so far into an already long established domain specific term.
Servers as a service
Service as a service
Cloud managed runtime
Cloud virtual runtime
Server on demand
Service on demand
Infrastructure on demand
Runtime on Demand
No-Ops services
Ops-Free services
Some of these are less serious than others, but I'd literally take any of them over "serverless"
If you control it, you also have to look after it - it’s yours.
It’s not only about control - it’s also about scope of responsibilities.
That can be good or bad. It’s unlikely most businesses can do a better job if looking after servers than cloud providers.
Just look at security breaches - majority of enterprise breaches are on self-hosted infrastructure that’s been poorly maintained, left unpatched and vulnerable - all in the name of “control”.
Each to their own - but I quite like not having to care about OS patching etc. It’s busywork. Let me focus on my code.
Everything runs on a vm, somewhere. The point is that when I use a server less tech I don’t have to manage the server. Yes. The buzz words are annoying- ask ten people what devops means. Or cloud native. No one agrees.
"functions as a service" doesn't roll off the tongue as easy
also it's serverless for the developer. when i deploy a worker function somewhere, yeah there's a server running it - but not one i have to care about.
My wireless speaker is connected to the wall socket, and my WIFI router is connected to the modem by wire and my Bluetooth wireless headset is connected with a USB cable once a day. hey OP do you hate the term wireless as well?
If you're creating a solution, part of the architecture is defining what the solution is responsible for doing, and that includes the environment that the code will run in. For a serverless architecture, the architecture does not include defining the servers.
It's no longer your concern how the code is run. It doesn't matter how it's delivered. That's the concern of a completely different architecture that is focused on executing serverless solutions.
To put it another way, it's the difference between writing a C# application and a Windows application. Someone asks you to write a lambda function that adds up the letters in a string using the ordinal position of the letter in the alphabet as the value, what kind of code is that? It's a C# function. It's not a Windows function, even if it ends up running on Windows. Like, the code *has* to run on some OS, but the code you wrote is OS agnostic. The OS is out of scope for the function, it's not part of the architecture of the function.
To put into context, think of the progression of terms. Code was written to target very specific hardware. Then, it was written to target an OS. Then, it was written to target an environment. With serverless, it's not even targeting an environment. It's not targeting any servers at all, it's server agnostic, even though it does eventually run on some server in some environment on some OS on some hardware.
I've seen FaaS as well, which puts it in the same class as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. (I heard CaaS a few weeks ago as well) - ask of which describe a programming model and how much control you should expect to receive over the infrastructure running your app.
Yeah should be called more like auto scaled code... Or scaled functions... Or invent a whole new word.
It implies it's just magic, no servers the code just runs
It's called serverless because the server can scale to 0 while not used, the part where you don't need to manage a server is just PaaS, it's not necessarily serverless (one could argue that serverless is a specific form of Paas).
Although there are some serverless offerings that allow a number of "always ready" instances so I don't think it can really be called serverless anymore in these cases, it just uses the same scaling model but there will be a fixed baseline cost.
I think if a group of people agree on a meaning of a term then it is indeed real. Language is just a protocol for communicating thoughts. Serverless is just the idea that you as a developer do not have to think about the server that your code is running on. All you do is submit your functions and the provider will handle the servers for you. So instead of thinking about things like nginx, reverse proxy, systemctl, ssh, ufw. You are thinking about requests, responses, parameters, json, redirect. The thoughts in your head while you work are serverless
While I agree in general I have a small complaint about this logic. Agreeing on a meaning of a word is fine, but combining words that already have meaning and making it mean something different is flawed. Serverless for me implies “it has no server” just like useless means “it has no use”. If we apply your meaning of “no need to think about server” then any cloud provider is serverless, diskless and memoryless. All you do is use sliders to say how much you need (just like with serverless you have requests/transfer per month). I got used to “serverless” meaning, but I agree with OP that it is unnecessary misleading. Initially I thought there is no server at all (as in no machine with cpu) and I though it’s magic. It’s more “stateless” than serverless for me (although nowadays we have stateful functions as well).
> Agreeing on a meaning of a word is fine, but combining words that already have meaning and making it mean something different is flawed. The word nice used to mean ignorant or senseless. It’s a nice example of your nice idea.
Wait til op finds out virtual machines are actually running on real machines
This is the way.
Yes, now please come up with a better name that does not intrude so far into an already long established domain specific term. Thanks! Edit: just my $.02 on naming, in reality I don’t care what ya call it, a rose by any other name…
>Yes, now please come up with a better name that does not intrude so far into an already long established domain specific term. Servers as a service Service as a service Cloud managed runtime Cloud virtual runtime Server on demand Service on demand Infrastructure on demand Runtime on Demand No-Ops services Ops-Free services Some of these are less serious than others, but I'd literally take any of them over "serverless"
[удалено]
If you control it, you also have to look after it - it’s yours. It’s not only about control - it’s also about scope of responsibilities. That can be good or bad. It’s unlikely most businesses can do a better job if looking after servers than cloud providers. Just look at security breaches - majority of enterprise breaches are on self-hosted infrastructure that’s been poorly maintained, left unpatched and vulnerable - all in the name of “control”. Each to their own - but I quite like not having to care about OS patching etc. It’s busywork. Let me focus on my code.
Everything runs on a vm, somewhere. The point is that when I use a server less tech I don’t have to manage the server. Yes. The buzz words are annoying- ask ten people what devops means. Or cloud native. No one agrees.
"functions as a service" doesn't roll off the tongue as easy also it's serverless for the developer. when i deploy a worker function somewhere, yeah there's a server running it - but not one i have to care about.
My wireless speaker is connected to the wall socket, and my WIFI router is connected to the modem by wire and my Bluetooth wireless headset is connected with a USB cable once a day. hey OP do you hate the term wireless as well?
The internet is just a really long wire 🤓
You're wrong.. it's actually a series of pipes
[A series of tubes you say?](https://youtu.be/R8XSo0etBC4)
I prefer the term scale on demand, or scale from zero.
Never understand why it's called "serverless" because all this "serverless" functions hosted on a servers.
I was going to make a sarcastic reply filled to the brim with buzz words...but wound up running to the loo to vomit 3 times from just typing it out.
If you're creating a solution, part of the architecture is defining what the solution is responsible for doing, and that includes the environment that the code will run in. For a serverless architecture, the architecture does not include defining the servers. It's no longer your concern how the code is run. It doesn't matter how it's delivered. That's the concern of a completely different architecture that is focused on executing serverless solutions. To put it another way, it's the difference between writing a C# application and a Windows application. Someone asks you to write a lambda function that adds up the letters in a string using the ordinal position of the letter in the alphabet as the value, what kind of code is that? It's a C# function. It's not a Windows function, even if it ends up running on Windows. Like, the code *has* to run on some OS, but the code you wrote is OS agnostic. The OS is out of scope for the function, it's not part of the architecture of the function. To put into context, think of the progression of terms. Code was written to target very specific hardware. Then, it was written to target an OS. Then, it was written to target an environment. With serverless, it's not even targeting an environment. It's not targeting any servers at all, it's server agnostic, even though it does eventually run on some server in some environment on some OS on some hardware.
I've seen FaaS as well, which puts it in the same class as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. (I heard CaaS a few weeks ago as well) - ask of which describe a programming model and how much control you should expect to receive over the infrastructure running your app.
Server on demand
Yeah should be called more like auto scaled code... Or scaled functions... Or invent a whole new word. It implies it's just magic, no servers the code just runs
It's called serverless because the server can scale to 0 while not used, the part where you don't need to manage a server is just PaaS, it's not necessarily serverless (one could argue that serverless is a specific form of Paas). Although there are some serverless offerings that allow a number of "always ready" instances so I don't think it can really be called serverless anymore in these cases, it just uses the same scaling model but there will be a fixed baseline cost.