Not just cloud costs. Look at how insanely powerful modern hardware is, yet software performance is... questionable. At least some of us have fast internet to download those 50mb js bundles before a web page loads.

A comment in adjacent thread above mentioned paying $21 per-loaf! That could pay for the equipment needed to bake a couple loaves a week. You really don't need much besides a normal oven.

Unless you're talking about the oven, the equipment isn't expensive.

Some skills are required, but it's really not that hard once you learn the technique and have done it a few times.

You can make amazing sourdough at home in a cast iron pot. It requires time, that's the nature of sourdough, but it's not hard once you learn how. I guarantee you could make bread as good or better for a dollar of ingredients!

> Puppet is also declarative and also comes with an agent/central host system but uses a pull based approach.

The person you're replying to mentioned a self-hosting use case, so this probably isn't relevant for that, but Ansible can also be configured for a pull approach, which is useful for scaling.

Even with automation, it can be a full-time job just to keep pace with the rate of change, never mind the initial development which can be non-trivial.

Your example only covers basic provisioning. The additional items mentioned by the parent comment can be a significant investment, both initially and over time.

> Your example only covers basic provisioning.

No. It covered setting up all the applications needed as well (nginx, monitoring agent, etc), installing keys/credentials.

What did parent mention that can't be covered by the approach I used?

I guess I read your comment as OS, the app, and configs, while the parent mentions auxiliary items, ending with "etc etc". The point is, all the extra things that aren't the app take knowledge and resources to set up and maintain.

Sure you can script all the things into 3 steps, just like you can draw an owl with a couple circles.

> The point is, all the extra things that aren't the app take knowledge and resources to set up and maintain.

Maintain, maybe. The setup for everything extra can scripted, and include a few packages I had to build from source myself because there was no binary download.

I hear you, and I'm passionate about automating all the things. I just wanted to add some perspective to the discussion to set expectations for less experienced people who might be considering a switch from PaaS to DIY.

I'm not a PaaS user, and I encourage people to avoid vendor lock-in and be in control of their own destiny. It takes work though, and you need to sweat the details if you care about reliability and security, which continue to be problem areas for more DIY solutions.

If people aren't willing to put in the work, I'd rather they stick to the managed services so they don't contribute to eroding the already abysmal trust of the industry at large.

Claude.md gets read every time and eats context, while it sounds like the skills are read as-needed, saving context.

I've been considering a guard goose for my chickens for many years. So loud though, not sure I want the extra racket and aggression.

Tangentially, if your guard geese aren't aggro enough, the Mute swan is an angry bird that is sometimes used to control geese. One even managed to drown a caretaker: https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/killer-swan-b...

IMHO, the higher up the ladder you go, the more important soft skills become. Communication is #1. More patience and empathy. More conservative views towards change and tech debt. More focus and rigor on correctness. More alignment with company goals and objectives. More willingness to say no. More effort on leading by example. Be humble, professional, and a pleasure to work with. Congrats!