Is a 'Stack' the Best Way to Understand Everything? (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Is a 'Stack' the Best Way to Understand Everything? (2017)

nytimes.com

58 pointsbilifuduo51 comments

Interesting take, but it misses the fundamental point of the stack metaphor: each layer has to depend on the existence of the previous layer. An operating system can't exist without hardware to run on; an application can't exist outside the context of an operating system. The author seems to think that any system with multiple components can be called a "stack" - at that point, you truly have reduced the term to a buzzword.

I got the impression that the author of this article doesn’t understand what a stack is. The examples he gives are all over the place.

The article was generally cringey but this sentence stood out:

Stack logic is only just finding its footing in the corporate world, and it hasn’t spilled into mainstream conversation just yet.

You nailed the lack of understanding. This awfulness stuck out for me:

> “Stack,” in technological terms, can mean a few different things, but the most relevant usage grew from the start-up world: A stack is a collection of different pieces of software that are being used together to accomplish a task.

>Stack logic is only just finding its footing in the corporate world, and it hasn’t spilled into mainstream conversation just yet.

When it comes to mainstream conversation, Discord appears to be picking up the slack.

EDIT: Welp, this is what I get for only glancing at the headline and not reading the article before commenting. I'll leave my mistake here rather than delete it for posterity's sake.

The term "LAMP stack" is at least 15 years old and even RMS commented on it a long time ago. That's as mainstream as it gets.

In what world do you live in where RMS is a mainstream figure? Or LAMP stack is a mainstream term?

Heh maybe you’re too young? LAMP stack is probably at this point so old nobody cares. But having worked with decisionmakers in corporations with large IT needs most were quite aware of LAMP-I mean it was in many ways the killer app of Linux.

Also this notion that stack was invented in tech is ridiculous. Stack ups have been referred to in manufacturing and medicine for years prior.

That's like saying differential equations aren't mainstream just because not everyone takes university-level math. Stacks are a mainstream technical concept in a mainstream technical profession. The relevant domain for determining prevalence is "Programmers." Non-technical people don't count.

I'd actually say the relevant group is "people trying to understand the domain" (given the question in the headline).

Which, generally, boils down to a group that is largely programmers, and even those that aren't programmers DO (AFAICT) have familiarity with the "stack" concept (non-technical Eng Managers, non-technical PMs, etc)

I'm not saying you're wrong in any way, just pointing out that it can be said in a way that doesn't sound like "programmers are all that matter" (which I don't think was your intent anyway).

"Mainstream" as in outside of technology circles.

It's the best way to understand cleanly separated hierarchical systems, sure. So it's great for computers (which are designed this way by humans to keep their complexity manageable), but it's a poor way to understand biological systems (for example) which are a mush of innumerable interconnected feedback loops beyond the capacity of any human mind to fully understand.

I nominate "mush" for the next buzzword. It works perfectly the way you've used it here and I'm sure I'll find it handy in a similar context.

It's not necessarily the best way to understand things designed by humans. A strict view of "the stack" leads one to ignore the direct (side-) effects of different layers on each other and to invent the imaginary sin of the "layering violation".

It's the best way to understand things designed by humans to fit in with that way of understanding. Some humans can design things which operate without hierarchies (see The Story of Mel) but normal humans will struggle to understand them.

> Is a 'X' the Best Way to Understand Everything?

No. Next question.

Once upon a time, Edsger Dijkstra, the inventor of the stack (data structure) attended a lecture by a prospective faculty member at UT Austin, who discussed topics related to a (network protocol) stack. Hilarity ensued.

Yeah, that's got nothing to do with the article.

Do you have a source for that? Would be funny and interesting to read into that.

The original use of "stack" as a metaphor in programming should trace to assembly language, but I do not see any mention of that here. I would guess the people who have transformed the term into a "buzzword" are not well-versed in assembler.

That's not really what they mean by 'stack' in this context, though. That's a 'stack' as a form of memory management, which is just a LIFO queue. In this sense they mean a "software stack" which is just a bunch of nested software systems (eg. OS <--> Web server <--> Web application).

People have stretched the concept quite far, but your example IS a stack with a meaningful concept of up and down.

Can you replace the application while leaving the OS in tact? Of course. Now try replacing the OS without impacting the other two.

The OSI model is stack with a top and a bottom, but each layer can be replaced, in theory.

The processor stack and a software stack really are distinct things, because the "software stack" has the notion of interfaces at the top and the bottom of each layer.

The fact that at the implementation level, the call stack sometimes mirrors the software stack is not really relevant. It's sort of accidental: each layer could be a process, connected with other layers by a pipe for instance.

> but each layer can be replaced, in theory.

That's literally the entire point of the abstraction. Each layer is independent and can do its thing without considering what other layers are doing.

Of course, like all abstractions, it's leaky, which leads to things like Nagle's algorithm causing lag in MMORPGs when devs don't turn it off (no offense, Animats! :D )

VirtualBox would like a word with you.

Let's say you have an Ubuntu OS in Virtualbox, and an application is running "on top" of Ubuntu. Now try swapping out the Ubuntu OS for Windows without affecting the application. It's nonsense, because an application only works when there's an OS to provide an abstraction layer for talking to hardware.

Of course, there are applications that run on bare metal without that abstraction layer, but the point I'm making is that in stacks with an OS, an application "on top" of that OS is not independent of the OS even with virtualization.

It's not independent of the OS that it's expecting, obviously. But anything below that OS can be swapped out via virtualisation.

It still necessitates a restart, at the very least

There's a "stack" data structure.

There's also a "stack", a layered architecture.

Don't confuse the two. They're unrelated.

Didn't Alan Turing come up with what was effectively a call stack for subroutines with "bury" and "disinter" for the ACE?

I think that probably predates assembly language programming!

not prior ? I've read that stack were brought to solve recursive functions, I'm not sure it was tied to assembly or brought in a more theoretical manner

stack-based memory allocation is the proper way to model data local to procedures in a call stack.

That's almost a tautology.

I'd say almost a bitautology

  stack => memory allocation :- local variables on call stack

Stack: a pile of objects, typically one that is neatly arranged.

Fundamentally, a stack is not about technology. Sure, it is used to represent a data structure in software, but the same can be said for queues, heaps, pipelines... And yes, it can also be used when the graphical representation of something looks like a pile of boxes sitting on top of each other, which is common in tech (ex: the TCP/IP model).

It may be true that tech popularized the word "stack" but it is just as easy (in fact easier) to imagine a stack of books rather than anything software related. Using that as an argument that "software is eating the world" is circular reasoning.

I was at a hospital recently and saw this. In the first waiting area there was a vertical queue for patients charts. I watched nurses pop off the top and then manually move every chart up to refill the top of the queue.

Then in another waiting room I saw the same thing, except it was basically a ring buffer. They used a little magnet to denote the top and I watched them keep filling below my chart and then back to the top above the other charts. No need to move every chart every time.

I highly doubt these nurses are thinking tech or programming. They're just being naturally clever.

I read this someplace.. thought it is fun to share.. we went from spaghetti (mainframe) code to lasagna (stacks / tiered architecture) to ravioli (micro-services) :)

Yea, but sometimes one persons ravioli tastes like lasagna or spaghetti.

It's more about form than flavour. Two different raviolis can have totally different stuffings, but no reasonable person will confuse a lasagna for a ravioli... although I suppose you could put a ravioli layer inside a lasagna...

It would take an intrepid determined cook to produce the culinary metaphor of what a modern microservice landscape looks like: a bucket of ravioli that are connected to each other by a web of spaghetti. (Does that sound like more pasta than filling? Yes, it does.)

Flip out of the metaphor and into literal pasta dishes and I like where you're going with this

At my old company, one spiky-haired genius explained it to the simple minded as "monolithic architecture is like a wedding cake. Microservices are like cupcakes." This was after he compared it to Ben and Jerry's versus FroYo.

I sure hope the refrigeration doesn't go out, they'll have a real mess on their hands then.

So:

* Monolithic: expensive but very carefully crafted. Beautiful. Self-contained and self-supporting. There's enough for everyone, and you'll keep it around for years (ok you'll keep a piece in the freezer, the metaphor only goes so far...)

* Microservices: cheaper, easier, and more popular on social media. Leaves you feeling a bit unsatisfied, and with a tendency to drop crumbs all over the place as you try to access the contents. Stale and discarded after a day.

(I'm assuming the spiky-haired genius was speaking in favor of microservices and I wanted to have fun with the metaphor :)

Definitely. Tough sometimes one have to allow for an abstraction leak : https://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/ProductImage/A1S7_1_...

When Reggie Watts broke things down in terms of stacks, it helped me understand a lot more: https://youtu.be/CJQU22Ttpwc

I hereby officially coin the next buzzword for 2020: Deep-Stack-Chain

Combining the AGI capabilities of Deep Learning with hyperdimensional system architectures to create decentralized Cloud infrastructure like never before!

If you can present it in AR/VR then I'll take two!

People use the word "stack" in multiple ways. So... ?

I initially thought the title was in reference to the wonderful https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/about.

There are 10 ways to understand everything:

1) A stack 10) a queue

Betteridge's law of headlines strikes again.

How is there not a single mention of Hypercard?

Which term I never understood. The actual structure of cards is a DAG.

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