AMA: Jesse Noller | Hacker News Reader

AMA: Jesse Noller

community.rackspace.com

45 pointsjam-python22 comments

Wow, that might be the absolute worst format for an AMA I've seen.

Flat discussion boards for what is a nested method of communication makes this almost impossible to follow.

How does one easily see the answer to a question if its not in a nested, or other attached, form?

It seems like you'd have to read the entire thread to see if a question has been asked.

I really wish they had put some thought into this before they started as this could be much more useful with just some basic changes.

</rant>

Yeah, I know it's their PR event so their format, but reddit is really perfect for these, why not use it?

I just respond to questions! I do miss threading and the layout and upvoting - I'm happy to answer questions here, there, reddit anywhere.

Jesse

Site doesn't load for me. Maybe they should have put it in the cl--oh wait.

That's just cold man ;)

So yes, I'm the Jesse in the OP: ask me literally anything you want here or there and I'll take the time to answer you. Private questions? jesse.noller@rackspace.com

Hi Jesse, I'm glad you're doing this. I love seeing the great people Rackspace is hiring and I'm excited about the improvements you could bring about.

I work for a Python shop that hosts everything on Rackspace. We have a mix of both dedicated servers and cloud servers, and we use cloud load balancers and Cloudfiles.

Here is my experience I had with Rackspace Cloudfiles and Python.

I started using a library I found on Rackspace's github, called python-cloudfiles (I contributed back some bugfixes to the library as well). One day, the project suddenly, without warning, disappeared from github! Where did it go! What happened? All my deploys are broken! Well, it turned out that it had been moved to another github account (rackerlabs) and support had been dropped, and it will be removed completely in August! I had to open a support ticket to figure out where it went. I wish there had been better communication here.

OK, so I started looking at Pyrax, which is the recommended replacement library (I think?). Looks pretty good, except it requires Python 2.7, and Rackspace only supports Centos6 (at least for dedicated servers), which has no official package for Python 2.7 (2.6 only). I could create a custom package to upgrade Python, but I find it kind of strange that Rackspace is providing a library that I can't run on their servers without adding custom packages.

Also, I noticed you recently added a commit to the python-cloudfiles package pointing to python-swiftclient. Is this an alternative to Pyrax? Can I use any of the openstack tools with Rackspace Cloud Servers / Cloud files? If so, should I build my apps on the openstack tools or on Pyrax?

Anyway, I hope you can clear some of this up.

Hi, I'm not Jesse, but I work with him, and maintain pyrax. I have only done some basic testing with 2.6, and everything appears to work correctly. I have also not used any of the new features of the 2.7.x versions of Python.

I would encourage you to try using pyrax with 2.6, and if you do run into any problems, please file an issue on GitHub and I will address it. We are ramping up our testing capabilities, and adding testing under 2.6.x is in the plans.

Hi Ed,

Pleased to meet you. I may be in communication soon regarding the results of my testing with python2.6 + Pyrax.

Awesome! Either post an issue to GitHub, or for general questions, etc., write me at ed.leafe@rackspace.com.

So, I won't repeat what Ed said - the tl;dr is that pyrax should support Python 2.6, and your point about dedicated servers only supporting CentOS6 is something we need to consider.

As for the rest - yes. The communications and deprecation of python-cloudfiles was poorly handled. The crux of what happened is that python-cloudfiles was a part time project and ultimately superseded by the python-swiftclient work in OpenStack.

We have requirements that for an SDK / tool to be officially supported, we have dedicated full time headcount to support and maintain the package(s) - the decision was made to proceed with Pyrax which leverages python-swiftclient and other openstack tools under the covers as the official Python SDK for Rackspace.

This was not made clear to the users, or the community by any parties involved, and for that I apologize. We're continually working on better upstream communication/collaboration and this series of events (you're not the first to give us this feedback) has made us take a very hard look internally on how this is all managed and communicated.

The good news is that Ed - our current Pyrax SDK maintainer is full time and dedicated to working with you and others on pyrax - this means the Python 2.6 support will be taken care of.

Tangentially: Yes - python-novaclient and python-swiftclient from OpenStack will work on Rackspace Cloud - you can actually look at the Pyrax source to see that it uses these under the covers. Rackspace runs OpenStack with as few differences as possible so OpenStack tools should work great on Rackspace.

So, in short: I apologize. The communications and management of this to upstream (the community) were poor, and we are renewing all of our efforts to focus on upstream first.

Jesse

Thanks for the classy response! I'm excited that you have a paid maintainer for Pyrax and are willing to consider python 2.6 support. Things are looking good for the future.

Jesse

I may not be able to phrase this correctly:

I think I am searching for simplicity in my own software, and tend to believe that there is too much "stuff" in most (web) frameworks. Am i just getting old and grouchy or do frameworks tend to simply get bigger without growing in expressiveness.?

I am toying with writing web software as WSGI and very little else. Have I lost the plot?

Hope that makes sense?

Just a note for anyone asking/looking - I will respond to all questions first thing tomorrow morning. Keep them coming!

You haven't lost the plot.

Sooner or later in any programmers life you're going to reach a point where it seems / feels easier to start with less. You start reaching for tools that feel more like the unix way - they do one thing very well, and allow you greater compose-ability and flexibility.

On the other hand, I have to fight this urge: because much like Python - the language that comes with community included, you sort of don't want to be the one person using something, or understanding what you did.

Your best bet is to find something that provides the simplicity you find yourself looking for, but that still has the greater community support you and others can lean on, and existing domain knowledge.

For example - let's say you want to go with a micro framework: look at bottle, web.py and my favorite: Flask. The nice thing with Flask for example is it stays out of my way, still has a ton of plugins (so, for example, I don't have to write my own damned Oauth system) and a vibrant community.

That ache in your gut is looking for things that get rid of boilerplate and get out of your way to just write awesome stuff. If you don't feel like the bigger frameworks like django (which I love for larger projects) get out of your way enough: don't drop down to raw WSGI, go spend some time with something smaller!

Thank you.

I am actually using Flask almost all the time, but I guess I need to find the community, and stick with the conventions. The smaller stuff will be the hobby. :-)

cheers

Jesse, any idea when I'm going to be able to download my backups from Rackspace cloud servers and instantly/directly load them into either VMWare or Virtualbox? I asked about this a while ago and was told it was coming with the move to OpenStack.

I've reached out to the Cloud Servers team and will post what I find out.

So, I spoke to the product team and they told me that this is still in the pipeline and part of the plan. The team is pretty heads down focused on scalability, performance and other key items - so yes, this is still coming, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

Sorry I can't give you a specific date, but I don't want to set unreasonable expectations.

No worries. Thanks for the info!

Is there a timeline on otter/autoscale in the public api?

Hi, I'm the Technical Product Manager for autoscale/otter. Next week we're doing a limited release to customers who replied to this survey: https://www.rackspace.com/blog/autoscale-survey-tell-us-what...

We're really excited to have people start using the Rackspace autoscale API, and already have environments setup in DCs around the world. At the same time, we are testing the heck out of it to make sure it'll be able to handle Superbowl size scale events.

If you have any questions, contact me felix.sargent@rackspace.com

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