Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

I used to do my own car maintenance, because I wanted to save money, and it was fun. It turned out it was more complex than I thought, things slowly fell apart or broke. I spent a good deal of time "re-fixing" things. Spent probably thousands on tools over the years, partly replacing the cheap stuff that broke or rusted quickly. My cars were often up on blocks. But I learned a lot of great lessons. The biggest one? Some things are not worth DIYing; pay a mechanic or lease your car, especially if you depend on it for your livelihood.

Even something as simple as an oil change, really isn't worth doing yourself. First you buy the tools (oil drip pan, filter wrench, funnel, creeper). Then you set aside the time to use them, find your dingy work clothes. You go to the store and buy new oil and a filter. You go home and change the oil. Then that day or another day you go to a store that will take your used oil. Versus 20 minutes at an auto mechanic, for about $15 more than the cost of the oil and filter.

Kubernetes is an entire car (and a complex one). It's really not worth doing the maintenance yourself, I promise you. Unless you're just doing it for fun.

I don’t know. My shop wanted 1800 to change my brakes. I bought the parts for 300 and got it done in a day (first time). Seems like a pretty good payback and good skill to have. My neighbour has a car lift which certainly helped.

Did you make sure to use the right grease after cleaning the caliper slide pins and boots? If not, those puppies can wear out quick and you'll be replacing not just one caliper, but a pair, as they need to be at about the same wear level/make/model, costing you more money (and time). Don't ask me how I know...

(This is what I think about when someone says "hey, my monthly bill is cheaper!" and later ends up with unhappy customers when their cluster goes kaput and they can't get it working again for days. Don't ask me how I know...)

Unless you find out that calling AA for everything and going to big name mechanics garage every time costs you significant portion of your budget.

A lot of it is finding balance between what to do yourself, what to outsource, and it's not as easy or clean as some people here like to claim.

+1 to this. I agree with the takeaway that paying for managed Kubernetes is the way to go 9 times out of 10 but I think in life its quite powerful to attempt to do things yourself sometimes. No, you should not go out and buy thousands of dollars worth of tools and do everything yourself but its pretty powerful to be able to do simple things in your life...change oil, replace light switches/sockets. The reason I personally find it powerful is that it helps me quantify what is worth outsourcing and what is not and it also builds mental models for how things work which is important when outsourcing work.

Depends on one: how interested/motivated are you, now and down the line; and two: how likely is your dependency on a third party going to screw you over in the long run.

My opinion, from the viewpoint of a consultant often involved in Kubernetes, is to get initial help and a persistent help line, but get somebody internally interested enough to ride along and learn.

Consultants and experts in general can save you from a lot of bad up-front decisions and banging your head against the wall for months. It's not trivial to learn your way around technologies or ecosystems, including common dark corners and pitfalls, in a reasonable amount of time while also having to focus on your core business. Accept help but learn to fish and to make a fire.

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