Release It Book Club
Release It Book Club Chapter 3: Fault, Error, Failure
In Release It! chapter 3, Nygard makes distinctions between faults, errors, and failures:
- Fault: “A condition that creates an incorrect internal state in your software.”
- Error: “Visibly incorrect behavior.”
- Failure: “An unresponsive system.”
“Triggering a fault opens the crack. Faults become errors, and errors provoke failures.. That’s how the cracks propagate.”
What do you think of these distinctions and this terminology for system failures?
#ReleaseItBookClub #ReleaseItBookClubChapter3
In the past, I have used these terms interchangeably. I suppose I mostly refer to errors. It may be handy to have more precise terms to describe these stages of failure.
Release It Book Club Chapter 3: Major Dangers to System Longevity
Nygard states that “the major dangers to your system’s longevity are memory leaks and data growth.” Can you think of other major dangers to system longevity?
#ReleaseItBookClub #ReleaseItBookClubChapter3
I have the advantage of reading ahead - there’s a whole chapter on stability antipatterns - but I think it’s interesting that this statement focuses on data issues. I suppose compute-related failures are more obvious and visible: if you accidentally wrote code that contains an infinite loop or is otherwise inefficient it will be more readily caught in testing.
Release It Book Club Chapter 3 Crack Propagation
In chapter 3 of Release It! Nygard refers to James R. Chiles’s “analogy between a complex system on the verge of failure and a steel plate with a microscopic crack in the metal. Under stress, that crack can begin to propagate faster…[until] the metal breaks explosively.”
In software systems, the equivalent of an explosive break and the “crack” that caused it is called a “failure mode.” Does this analogy and definition resonate with you?
Release It Book Club Chapter 1 Qa Team
Does your company have a traditional QA team? If so, what percentage of defects do you think they catch?
We don’t have a QA team at Seeq. In chapter 1 of Release It! Michael Nygard talks about how some engineers develop code for the QA team to verify rather than for the customer to use or to work well in production. I think that I have been guilty of that - especially some of the work I did at Groupon comes to mind. At Seeq, the bigger temptation is to write software for the support team to manage and keep running.
Release It Book Club Chapter 1 War Story
What’s the hairiest or most expensive production bug you’ve had to fix?
#ReleaseItBookClub #ReleaseItBookClubChapter1
Release It Book Club Loneliness
I think no one is reading this book with me. I miss you all. 🥹 You can just assume from now on the replies to these posts are me answering my own discussion questions 🤣. Or you can respond without reading the book. Maybe someone will pick it up sometime and follow the breadcrumbs.
Release It Book Preface Discussion 2
The preface of Release It! states, “If anybody has to go home for the day because your software stops working then this book is for you.” Do you work on something with that level of criticality? What do you work on that might be helped by the advice in this book?
#ReleaseItBookClubPreface #ReleaseItBookClub
Discuss on:
Release It Book Preface Discussion 1
What are you hoping to learn from Release It!? What are you hoping to get out of the book club?
#ReleaseItBookClubPreface #ReleaseItBookClub
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Based on the title, I thought it would be about Continuous Delivery, deployment strategies, etc. Maybe it will touch on those topics, but it seems to be much more focused on the design of robust software in production. So now I am hoping that this book will help me espouse these principles of robustness in my own work and throughout my company. Similarly, for the book club I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts and experiences on the content of the book to see how it could be applied in different contexts, and hopefully receive some inspiration for applying it in my context.
Release It Book Club Starts Next Week
#ReleaseItBookClub starts next week! You can obtain your copy (use discount code stevenoxley at pragprog.com) and start reading. I’ll start posting discussion questions next week using tag #ReleaseItBookClub and tag pattern #ReleaseItBookClubChapterN so you can read and discuss at your own pace. See you there!
Release It! Book Club Discount
I have news! You can use the discount code stevenoxley to get a 40% discount on Release It! Second Edition by Michael T. Nygard - making it that much easier to join the async book club that I’m starting here in February.
Release It! Async Book Club
I’m starting an async book club for the book Release It! Second Edition by Michael T. Nygard and you’re invited to join! You can sign up here to register your interest and (hopefully) get a discount on the book: https://forms.gle/kti3xFYD7cMjEBYk9. Or go ahead and buy the book now (I already have mine). I plan to start reading and posting discussion questions at the beginning of February. I’m looking forward to it, and feel free to spread the word - all are welcome!