Are you working in software development, and wondering if you should know about cloud computing? Mattias Andersson explains why all developers should be cloud capable, and why cloud certifications are useful.
You’ve come here asking “I’m a dev, should I really know about cloud technology?” The answer is yes — easy solved. Okay, you can go now!
… Wait, you want a more detailed explanation?
Well, if you insist. Imagine software as a hammer and infrastructure as a saw, and you’re using both to build a house (your project). If you know nothing about hammering nails to attach things together, you’re going to have a hard time with it. You might resort to all sorts of silly things, like:
- Trying to glue it together
- Tying it together with ropes
- Piling more lumber on as support
Needless to say, this is not good, and some bystanders are probably giving you funny looks. Now, imagine you do know about hammering things, but you don’t know about sawing things to the right length, and you start with a bunch of boards that are too long (or too short) to fit your plan.
In response to this, you might try changing your house plan to compensate, and wind up with an oddly-shaped house. Or you might try to break the boards through force — leaving sharp edges and many now-too-short boards — and then nail them together until they fit.
Would you live in this house? I sure wouldn’t — It doesn’t sound very structurally sound at all.
Now while this scenario might sound wholly unrealistic, the painful truth is we get the same level of ridiculousness when technology professionals focus on either the software or the infrastructure without understanding the other. Software is always deployed to run on some infrastructure, and infrastructure is purposeless without some software.