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It's a great book, very well written and fair. But the first time I read it I suffered a certain amount of zealotry: "Google is amazing! I should rewrite everything to be more like them!". Really a subcaption everyone should keep in mind is that the book defines how Google built systems for Google. YMMV.

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Currently reading the book, and could see the zealotry come out, but they mention, repeatedly, that your own systems may not need the level of service that Google built-in, or your teams may not be big enough to justify, etc. I don't think it is quite fair to indicate that they didn't give that thought. I totally agree that it is a great book and should be encouraged throughout ops orgs, devops roles, and developers who want to plan for the future, but that not every company needs the Google way to 100%, or maybe even 50% (as you indicated as well).

Also keep in mind that even the mighty Google has some rusty and pointy internal tools. There's no reason to mention any crappy things in a book about good practices ;).

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