zlacker

>>meetpa+(OP)
Kudos to Cloudflare for clarity and diligence.

When talking of their earlier Lua code:

> we have never before applied a killswitch to a rule with an action of “execute”.

I was surprised that a rules-based system was not tested completely, perhaps because the Lua code is legacy relative to the newer Rust implementation?

It tracks what I've seen elsewhere: quality engineering can't keep up with the production engineering. It's just that I think of CloudFlare as an infrastructure place, where that shouldn't be true.

I had a manager who came from defense electronics in the 1980's. He said in that context, the quality engineering team was always in charge, and always more skilled. For him, software is backwards.

>>w10-1+aw
This is funny, considering that someone that worked on the defense industry (guide missile system) found a memory leak on one of their products, at that time. They told him that they knew about it, but that it's timed just right with the range of the system it would be used, so it doesn't matter.

>>braiam+qD
... until the extended-range version is ordered and no one remembers to fix the leak. :]

>>mopsi+9K
They will remember, because it'll have been measured and documented, rigorously.

>>wizzwi+TU
I've found that the real trick with documentation isn't creation, it's discovery. I wonder how that information is easily found afterwards.

>>Sketch+IW
By reading the documentation thoroughly as a compulsory first step to designing the next system that depends on it.

I realise this may probably boggle the mind of the modern software developer.

>>lloeki+dY
I used to take this approach when building new integrations. Then I realized (1) most documentation sucks (2) there's far too much to remember (3) much of it is conditional (4) you don't always know what matters until it matters (e.g. using different paths of implementation).

What works much better is having an intentional review step that you come back to.