Hacker News Reader

Comment by pklee | Hacker News Reader

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) :)

View on HN

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...

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

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.)

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 :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com