The New Stack Turns 8
Editor-in-Chief Joab Jackson said I should write a post from The New Stack’s point-of-view if it were an eight-year-old trying to make sense of things since April 29, 2014, the day we launched.
Alex: Hello, TNS 8!
TNS 8: It’s my birthday.
Alex: Let’s have some pancakes.
TNS 8: Definitely. I don’t remember pancakes until my first birthday when we had a party at a CoreOS gig
. That was like a long time ago when Docker was new, and Kubernetes was an idea being dreamed up by a few engineers at Google.
Alex: A youngster. Ha. Those were different times. Docker seemed like the answer to everything, and then not, and now it is seeing a new emergence. Red Hat acquired CoreOS. A few people became heroes. Others withdrew to regroup. Do you remember all of that?
TNS 8: I remember many people getting really excited and upset during those times. There was the talk of forks or something. Then it became one big nautical fest with Kubernetes. Now it seems to be shifting a little bit back to the web and how it works. That’s at least what I hear from the editors.
Alex: The Docker story goes with the Linux story, which comes from a deep history of its own. Many generations before us wrote code and created the myth about the development, deployment, and management of at-scale technologies. Docker, Kubernetes — they all came out of that myth. You wouldn’t be here if it were not for that need to explain the myth, interpret it, abstract it and then try to scrape it all back and explain it again.
TNS 8: I just remember the people. All I know is that your friends change. And you make new friends. There once were the Docker friends. Then there were the Kubernetes friends. Then there were serverless friends. And data friends. And then there were the unexpected friends. And then there are the friends who show up everywhere. And then there are the ones you never thought would be friends who decide they want to hang out and work together.
Alex: Like who?
TNS 8: Microsoft and the open source community — that’s a weird one.
Alex: It was inevitable.
TNS 8: I may not be old enough to quite get it but it sure seems like companies that get open source, also control the software factory. Ever since arriving, open source has been the one constant. And now there are all these hotshot engineers running open source offices. That sure seems like a thing. Everyone wants to have a software factory and they need the smartest people to get the flywheel spinning.
Alex: What do you recall most about the last year?
TNS 8: I just remember all the talk about terms that were popular once but don’t seem as cool anymore.
Alex: Like what?
TNS 8: Microservices. Serverless. OpenStack. These terms are not as resonating as singular terms. But they are relevant in context with Kubernetes or whatever you want to call scale. GitOps is still one of the hottest topics on The New Stack. But how long will that last as a topic of interest? Now we hear a lot about WebAssembly? What’s next?
Alex: We’ve learned a lot, haven’t we? The pendulum swings. There’s still a lot to unpack.
TNS 8: What’s the plan for the next year? I have a wish list.
Hungry K8s engineers waiting for the pancakes, KubeCon EU 2019.
Alex: Let’s hear it.
TNS 8: More depth.
Alex: Like what?
TNS 8: Just deeper looks at topics. Explanation and analysis. We’re here to provide that for people, right?
Alex: Yes we are. What else should we do?
TNS 8: Take care of Queen Judy.
Alex: You know it.
TNS: And take me to the beach. Valencia. No pancakes, just tapas.
Alex: Sure thing. Happy Birthday, TNS 8.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Alex Williams is the Portland-based Founder and Publisher of The New Stack.
