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The Amazon Technology Platform

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the under-the-covers dept.

Don420 writes "Jim Gray has an interview with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels for ACM Queue. It is filled with a lot of details about the Amazon architecture that we have not seen before: 'If you hit the Amazon.com gateway page, the application calls more than 100 services to collect data and construct the page for you.' But also quite a strong statements about developing software at Amazon: 'Developers of our services can use any tools they see fit to build their services. [...] Whatever tools are necessary, we provide them, and then get the hell out of the way of the developers so that they can do their jobs. [...] Developers are like artists; they produce their best work if they have the freedom to do so, but they need good tools.'"

3 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Re:100 Services ? by shmlco · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ever considered the amount of data that has to be churned through to build your average custom My Yahoo home page? Especially one with a ton of custom news items, stocks, local weather, local movie listings, and so on?

    Major web sites are just a "little" more complex than your typical iWeb home page...

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
  2. But they need good tools by wysiwia · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sure anybody need good tools to produces something exceptional. But what can you do if the needed tools aren't available? What can developers do if they aren't happy with their tools or their environment?

    For users the answer is easy, they simply switch to something different, but for developer it's not. You usually first have to get a lot of knowledge which needs time. But one does never get more time!

    So developers have to think in advance sometimes several years. This means constantly be on the edge of the available knowledge. Tools can certainly help but nothing prevents you from getting the knowledge in advance.

    O. Wyss

    --
    See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
  3. Re:Good Tools? by mahangu · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is an idiom in my native tongue of Sinhala for this - natanna bari minihata polova adai, which translated directly (albeit a little clunkily) reads the ground is always uneven for the person who can't dance.

    Having said this, I'm sure everyone agrees that a certain amount of tools are necessary to be productive. All in all though, I think this article sums up the value of tools pretty well.