What are you making?

I'm exploring how to build a testable microservice architecture. Focusing on tests & craftsmanship.

Not particularly interesting from an algorithmic perspective

What's a microservice?

But interesting from a SWEng perspective

a single "slice" of a bigger system, packaged as its own REST service

e.g. if you have an online shop, the shopping basket might be served by a separate service, the wishlist by another, etc.

essentially, a more granular way of decomposing things that do multiple tasks

and it should be built such that it can be run replicated (e.g. in a cluster)

so a microservice is something like a library in the context of distributed replicated systems

Okay

You seem to live in Rome while I am a barbarian, feral at best

Hm, I don't quite get what you mean by that. Care to elaborate?

I've never heard of most of those names

Ah, well. It's a slice of a slice of a slice of the world. Nothing particularly important, just something to tinker with 😃

I also do recreational programming, but I don't know what a REST service is

Although I know no netcode yet

well, a REST service is nothing particularly mysterious: it's a web service that uses HTTP verbs and uses links for service navigation/discovery

usually produces JSON as the media type

first result is decent: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rest%20service

quote: "While REST stands for Representational State Transfer, which is an architectural style for networked hypermedia applications, it is primarily used to build Web services that are lightweight, maintainable, and scalable. A service based on REST is called a RESTful service."

I also do this professionally, so I'm exposed to a different set of topics probably

"so a microservice is something like a library in the context of distributed replicated systems" Do people boilerplate with microservices?

I just lkooked up what boilerplating really means.

I meant it in a slightly metaphorical way. It's a service that other distributed services use, that is self-contained and usually light-weight

I was wrong about that, too

A guy I talked to used it as a black box you send things in to, and it send ssomething out, but you don't know how exactly it does it

you just know what its function is

sure, that's correct. Usually this principle is called "encapsulation"

Understanding OO concepts would be helpful towards understanding REST

and a microservice (and a library) are indeed expected to encapsulate 😃

@redpillavatar hm, I'd say that one might be more comfortable with REST coming from a (purely or otherwise) functional background

I only do OO programming. Ravioli code

basically REST says "use HTTP verbs for actions, and make your service a pure function of the request"

in my limited understanding, anyway

there's a whole PhD thesis on REST, so presumably there's a little more to it

😄

https://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Efielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm it actually quite readable

right, that's the one I meant. I at least skimmed a couple of years ago.

Is everyone here in IT or what

Surprised the IT sector isn't 100% Indian by now