Private beta and maybe the future: System Initiative

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Terraform is a car and CloudFormation is a delivery van. After a while, techies got _passionate_ and came out with CDK and Pulumi which are pretty much a Hummer H2. @thesysteminit: leave the US car-focused hellscape, move Amsterdam/Oulu, and get an electric bike. Pure bliss! twitter.com/adamhjk/status/1671536868582912001

Of course, the "DevOps-are-real-devs-I-swear-here-is-another-100k-of-Golang-to-prove-it" infrastructure engineers will be very reluctant and dismissive of this. I get it, trauma is hard to get over *hugs* That said, trust me and try SI. It's amazing! twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1670719831186845701

Just like folks in Oulu still use cars (either owned or rented) infra people will continue to use Terraform and CloudFormation. But you know, for like 90% of your day-to-day a bike is more than enough — you're not moving furniture 5 times a day. SI makes that 90% blissful!

And, for the record, SI still has a bunch of code! It's just hidden away and only there when you legitimately need it — it's not thrown in your face and it's not made a mandatory requirement. And oh boy, is it powerful. It makes all other IaC look like horses instead of cars 🤯

I've been privileged enough to get both to try out SI early and to chat to the team building SI. Let me tell you, they're doing everything right. 100% EVERYTHING PERFECT. Seriously. Even the crankiest version of me had 0 things to complain about.

For every single potential worry and concern I had, the SI team already had a top-notch action plan drawn up: what the issues are, how to tackle the issues, how to improve the experience around the issue, how to fix the issues, and how to actually build a product around it all.

Sure, they have all the time to fuck this up, but I don't think they will. They're focused. They're skilled as heck. They're not doing any dirty and annoying growth hacks. They're not compromising. They're not self-sabotaging. They're fully and completely on top of this❣️

Also, I have to brag 😎 Influencer achievements unlocked: ✅ Get quoted in a press release ✅ Get quoted alongside @redmonk (full disclosure: SI did not pay me. They did send me some swag and I actually had to pay evil import taxes for that so I guess my balance is negative)

Anyway, I am excited as heck about System Initiative and y'all need to put this at the top of your "things to keep an eye on and try" list. I think they'll start a new era for DevOps and I can't wait to use this 🚀