In defense of simple architectures

Dan Luu · 6 Apr 2022

Dan Luu did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Even at top-100 traffic levels most applications can be served by a simple monolith, and it is cheaper to build than a complex architecture.

Their wordscomputers are fast enough that high-traffic apps can be served with simple architectures, which can generally be created more cheaply and easily than complex architectures
Our reading
Conference programmes and the tech press over-represent complex architectures, so teams copy techniques their scale does not need.

Their wordsDespite the unreasonable effectiveness of simple architectures, most press goes to complex architectures.
Our reading
The cost of the engineering team dominates the cost of the machines it runs, so a slow language is usually an affordable choice.

Their wordsThe cost of our engineering team completely dominates the cost of the systems we operate

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